Shikizaki
by Kaeru Soyokaze
Summary: One girl with a secret. A pug. A leek battle. A slaughterhouse rescue attempt. Life for the Sohmas just got a whole lot weirder. Ch. 8 UP!
1. Sasurai

This is my first Furuba (or Fruits Basket) fanfic, so please be nice. And don't worry, Mai-chan, I'll be getting the other one up soon. I hope.   
  
As for a minor disclaimer…I own Sasurai Asamoya, Pug, Kiri Asamoya, and Shiraha Asamoya. Kelsey (yes, Kelsey!) owns Arai Sohma. I do NOT own any of the FB characters, understood? I may own more characters later, but this is just for the beginning.  
  
I have NO clue who Sasu's going to pair up with, so suggestions and comments would be welcome. As for Arai…well, Kelsey and I are discussing that. XD So, sit tight, because this story is about to start! I don't expect my usual reviewers to read this (well, maybe some), but maybe I can get some new ones! Much love to Mai-chan for inspiring me on FB fanfics, especially on the Zodiac one, which WILL go up. Eventually!   
  
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She ran…kept running, even when her chest seized up painfully so that she couldn't breathe regularly, even though heat seared her skin until she cried out in desperation…help, she had to find help.  
  
A protruding tree root made her stumble to the ground where she lay there, trembling. With a groan, she pushed herself up with shaking arms, decorated with burns. "Have to…find help…" She whispered to herself, almost distractedly. "I have to…" Reaching out to find an anchor so that she could get to her feet, her fingers brushed against something soft and warm.   
  
A black dog, with ears standing straight up, stood in front of her, watching her calmly.   
  
"…Hey, dog…are you lost?" She smiled wearily. "I…don't suppose…you know anyone…who can help them…"  
  
The dog tilted its head, with an oddly intelligent look on its ebon face. It wagged its tail once and stepped closer, nudging the girl until she reached up, grasping its fur.   
  
"You're…going to be my anchor…then?"   
  
The dog actually nodded.  
  
"…All right…lead the way, Lassie…" She would wonder later.  
  
The canine waited patiently until she had risen, and then began a slow, yet purposeful walk. It obviously knew where it was going, so she decided to go along with it. Keeping a hand on its back, she wobbled along. From time to time, the dog glanced back, making encouraging whimpers in its throat.  
  
She didn't know how long they kept moving…how far they had gone…until she suddenly came upon a house, nestled among the trees. There were lights…which meant there were people inside.   
  
"Help…" She couldn't scream or shout anymore. Her voice was just a quiet rasp, thick with inhaled smoke and some sort of emotion…grief? Pain?  
  
Her new canine friend decided to help out and let out a thundering "WOOF!" That ought to do it, she thought, blinking.  
  
--Inside--  
  
"Yes, we'll be sure to keep an eye out for her, Arai." The gray-haired boy nodded, forgetting that the person on the other end of the line couldn't see the head movement. "I heard about the fire…I can understand why you're worried…mm-hm…we'll go check as soon as we can. All right." He hung up the phone and looked down at the two people at the table, glancing at him quizzically.   
  
"Is something the matter, Yuki-kun?" The brown-haired female spoke up first, her big blue eyes reflecting concern.   
  
"It was Arai?" The orange-haired male asked, frowning. "Why'd she call? She NEVER calls."  
  
"You were listening, baka neko," Yuki replied calmly. "Figure it out." Both the boy and the girl still seemed puzzled, so he sighed. "There was a fire in the area where her best friend lives. She lives too far away to check, so she called to see if we would go investigate."  
  
The other boy shook his head. "Have fun."  
  
"That means you too."  
  
"Hell no! Shigure went out after Tohru hugged him, let HIM look for her friend!"  
  
"I'll go with you, Yuki-kun!" Tohru rose. "If it were Uo-chan or Hana-chan or either of you, I'd be worried too. I'm going to help Arai-san! …Whoever she is."  
  
Yuki smiled at her. "Arai is our cousin, but she's not one of the Zodiac. She keeps to herself mostly. Arigato, Honda-san."  
  
"Oh, it's no problem!" She smiled back and was about to leave when the loud barking outside made her halt. "…Shigure-san?"  
  
"It's that lecher, all right." The orange-haired boy scowled. "Did he lock himself out or something?"  
  
"I'll go open the door for him!" Tohru ran to the door and slid it open. Instantly, her hand rose to her mouth and she let out a soft scream. "Shigure-san, what happened?? Kyou-kun, Yuki-kun, please come quickly!"  
  
Alarmed at her tone, the two boys hurried over to her…and saw a rather strange sight.  
  
There was the dog, standing quite still…and, one hand on his back…there was a girl. She didn't seem to be any older than the three at the door, and she looked a mess. Brown hair spilled over her shoulders, a few strands falling across her ashen face. Her hazel eyes, a mixture of brown and light green, were huge in her face. Her bare arms were burned, and her clothes were charred and blackened. A hoarse voice emerged from her dry mouth.  
  
"Onegai…tasukete…" (A/N: Please…help…) She slowly sank to the ground, settling on her knees, still clutching the dog's fur.  
  
Tohru took off her sweater, running out in her socks to wrap it around the girl. "Can you walk?" She asked kindly.  
  
"…Mmm-hmmm…" Sure enough, with Tohru's assistance, she was able to get up once again. Yuki and Kyou ran to help steady her by the arms, and, between the three of them, they managed to get her inside.   
  
"I'm going to clean her up." The other girl looked at her friends. "Can you two please make a bed for her?"  
  
"Of course, Honda-san," Yuki agreed. Kyou snorted.  
  
"I don't see why I--"  
  
"Stop being stubborn and help," his cousin told him sternly. Kyou, about to challenge the damned rat to a fight, saw Tohru and the girl looking at him, the latter letting out a small sigh, before Tohru escorted her to her room.   
  
--Twenty Minutes Later…--  
  
"All right, she's all settled in." Tohru smiled at the three males waiting outside the door, two human, one canine. "But I think she's about to fall asleep, so we should probably talk to her only briefly."  
  
Yuki and Kyou nodded silently, and the dog trotted inside the room, over to the makeshift bed (consisting of a lot of sheets and blankets), and lay down beside the girl, who turned slowly on her side to look at him. She was wearing a pair of Tohru's pajamas, blue flannel, and the dirt and grime on her face had been completely cleaned off. Her arms were bandaged, made noticeable as she raised one to scratch behind the dog's fuzzy ears.   
  
"Thank you," she whispered to the dog. "I owe you a lot…"  
  
Tohru, Yuki, and Kyou, peering in, saw the girl conversing with the dog, and decided to wait until tomorrow to talk to her. They retreated.  
  
"I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet…" The girl laughed embarrassedly. "My name…is Sasurai. Most everyone calls me Sasu, but my best friend calls me Sass…" She smiled crookedly at the canine, who thumped his tail on the floor. "You're probably wondering…what's up…huh, Inu-chan?" There was a long pause, and then she took a deep breath. "The truth is…my house…my house caught on fire or something…I managed to get out with only a few burns, but my mom and my older sister…I don't know if they got out…so I ran…to get help…and you found me."  
  
The dog let out a low whimper, as if he understood.  
  
Sasurai gazed at him, her eyes, now a darker brown, searching his own. "It's like you can understand me," she murmured tiredly. "I hope you don't think I'm crazy, for talking to a dog…"  
  
"No, not at all. In fact, I find it quite refreshing."  
  
The girl blinked in bemusement as a puff of smoke (complete with a POP) surrounded the dog, obscuring her view of him. When it faded, a black-haired man smiled sheepishly at her.   
  
He wasn't wearing any clothes.  
  
"Oh, and my name's not Lassie. I am, as you can perfectly see, a male. My name is Shigure and it's nice to meet you, Sasu-chan."  
  
Sasurai did the only thing a reasonable, high-school girl with a naked man lying in front of her would do.  
  
She grabbed the nearest object, a pencil holder, and threw it at his head.   
  
In the main room of the house, the three teenagers could hear several loud cries.  
  
"Yes, well, I KNOW it looks bad, but please believe me, I was just--"  
  
"I don't know who the hell you are, but get away from me and GET SOME CLOTHES ON!!"  
  
"I TOLD you, I am Shigure, and you -CLUNK-…have got quite a throwing arm. Have you ever thought about taking up baseball? -CLUNK- Tohru-kuuuuun, Tohru-kun, please come and protect me from this savage creature!"  
  
Yuki stood up. "I'll call Hatori and have him take a look at her…but I think she'll be fine."  
  
Kyou rolled his eyes. "Great. And now Shigure's gone and transformed in front of her. What now?"  
  
His cousin gazed at him with a stoic expression. "Hatori may be needed in more than one aspect," he said at last.   
  
The orange-haired boy gawked at him. "You mean--"  
  
"It's possible. It's up to the girl and Akito. But first…" Yuki picked up the phone and dialed a number. He listened intently into the earpiece, and then spoke. "Yes, Arai, she's fine…a little burnt, but nothing too serious." A pause. "She found out, so please tell Akito that she knows now. Not the entire story, but Shigure transformed right in front of her…all right…"  
  
Tohru and Kyou exchanged a glance. The boy sighed heavily. "Damn…this could be bad…"  
  
No one was aware, not even Sasurai, that this event had been no accident. No one knew her role in the unfolding saga…only one person knew, and he wasn't going to reveal the truth. Not yet. Not anytime soon.  
  
"Well, yes, I AM sorry for showing you my magnificent body…you wouldn't happen to be a virgin, would you?"  
  
"…"  
  
"Uh…Sasu-chan…I really don't think you should be handling such heavy and dangerous objects in your condition…Sasu-chan…uh…Sasu-chan??"  
  
"Well, at least she's got spirit," Yuki observed, still holding the phone.   
  
--OOC--  
  
Yes, I know the first chapter was kinda boring… They usually are, in my case. But things should liven up considerably by the next chapter, so please review! And NO, I am NOT pairing Sasurai with Shigure. Just to let you know. NEXT Chapter!  
  
- Shigure sits Sasurai down to have "The Talk". And no, I'm not talking about the birds and the bees.  
  
- Hatori, Hatsuharu, and Momiji meet Sasurai, and Kyou and Yuki investigate the burned house. What they find…and what about Hatori? Will Sasu lose her memories?  
  
- It's back to school, where you lucky readers get to meet Arai Sohma…and also the very strange new pet of Sasurai's. If you know me, you'll definitely know what it is. XD 


	2. Startled Realization

-squees and hugs everybody- You guys rock. And as for Kelsey's question (you evil person, you!), Shikizaki means "Blooming in every season". I dunno, I just liked it. Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviewed! Got a vote for Kyou and one for Haru, but I'm not pairing Sasu with Kyou or Yuki. I couldn't. So I won't. -is a big Yukiru fan anyway-   
  
Last chapter, we meet Sasurai, a girl with a bit of a burning house dilemma. Of course, she witnesses a transformation, and now things are about to get even more interesting. Hehehehehehe…  
  
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"You're WHAT?!"  
  
Sasurai gaped at the three Sohmas and Tohru. All of them looked back steadily at her.   
  
"Members of the Zodiac," Shigure repeated. "You DO know it, right?"  
  
She nodded slowly. "You mean with the dragon and the rat and the ox…?"  
  
"Exactly. I am the dog. Yuki-kun is the rat. And Kyou-kun is the cat."  
  
Something wasn't registering here. "Wait a minute…there isn't a cat in the Zodiac!"  
  
"Finally, someone who sees reason," Yuki sighed.  
  
"He was cheated!" Tohru cried vehemently. "The rat tricked him into missing the banquet and the poor cat was asleep and didn't get to become one of the Zodiac! It was the rat's fault!" She was on her feet now, and all heads were turned towards her. Realizing what she'd just said, the brunette blushed. "Gomen, Yuki-kun…I…I didn't mean--"  
  
"It's fine, Honda-san," he assured her.   
  
"And…how did this come about?" Sasurai asked, trying her best to sound cool and collected. Judging by the strained quality of her voice, it wasn't going too well. She sat on her makeshift bed, while Tohru and Yuki sat on Tohru's bed, Shigure sat in a chair, and Kyou was settled on the floor.   
  
"Well, once upon a time, there was a handsome prince who angered the magical faeries in the wood by the castle, and so they, with their wands of righteous anger, laid upon the prince--"  
  
"You're starting to sound like Ayame," Yuki interrupted. Shigure smiled apologetically.  
  
"Actually, we're just possessed by the twelve spirits of the Chinese Zodiac…and the cat. We're not sure how it came about, but there's thirteen of us with this curse. We transform into our animal forms when we're weak or someone of the opposite sex hugs us."   
  
"And that's quite enough from you, Shigure." A tall man walked into the room, his dark hair hiding his left eye. He set a black bag on the floor and knelt, staring into Sasurai's eyes with calm concentration.   
  
"And you would be…" His voice was soft and low, practically emotionless.   
  
"Asamoya…Sasurai," the girl answered, successfully cowed. "And YOU would be?"  
  
"Sohma Hatori."   
  
"Oh, are you a Zodiac member t--"  
  
Kyou automatically covered the girl's mouth, but Hatori was already sighing.   
  
"So she knows, then."  
  
"Do you want to know which one he is, Sasu-chan??" Shigure asked eagerly. "It's quite funny, really. He's the Year of the Dragon, but he actually transforms into a--"  
  
"One more word out of you and I'll jam this stethoscope down your throat," Hatori said very quietly, pulling out the object from his bag and placing the metal end over Sasurai's heart. He frowned, listening. Then he checked the bandages on her arms and brought out a pad and a pen, jotting down something.   
  
"Smoke inhalation, mostly," he remarked, as he wrote. "And a few minor burns. And how, exactly, did you find out about the curse?"  
  
Sasurai relayed the story up to the part where the big black dog had transformed into Shigure. Then the novelist jumped in.  
  
"Oh, Ha'-san, it was absolutely horrible!" He whined. "Sasu-chan took one look at my beauty and it went straight to her head! The poor girl went mad with suppressed passion and started throwing things at me!"  
  
"Everything but herself, you mean. Pity, since you so enjoy high-school girls."  
  
"Oh, the cruelty!" Shigure continued.  
  
Hatori sighed again. "You probably had it coming."  
  
Sasurai looked at them, blinking. "…Are you sure you two are related?" _What have I gotten myself into...?  
_  
Shigure was encouraged. "I believe I was secretly adopted when I was found in the filthy slums, a fine young child who was taken in by the mysterious Sohma family and raised as one of their own!"  
  
"You forget the curse, dumbass," Kyou muttered.  
  
His cousin waved it off. "A mild side-effect."  
  
"MILD?!" The neko yelled. "You turn into a damn DOG when a girl hugs you!!"  
  
Shigure refused to allow Kyou to ruin his mood. "But I am a handsome dog! I could have transformed into one of those hideous little dogs with the bulging eyes…or one of those dogs with all the wrinkles…"  
  
Hatori put his pad away. "Leave him. He's hopeless." He turned to the others. "In fact, could you all leave? I need to talk to Asamoya-san for a moment."  
  
"H-hai!" Tohru immediately left. Yuki and Kyou were more reluctant, fearing what was to possibly come, and Shigure had to firmly push them out, sliding the door shut behind him.   
  
"…Asamoya-san." The young doctor regarded the girl in front of him with grave seriousness. "Do you know what usually happens to someone who finds out our secret…someone who isn't a Sohma?"  
  
Sasurai shuddered. "You're not one of those mad doctors who butcher people and leave them in the woods to rot, are you?"  
  
His expression didn't alter. "No. However, if Akito, the Head of the Sohma family, wills it, I can erase your memories…actually, more like suppress. You won't remember any of this."  
  
Aghast, the girl stared at him, the pupils in her light hazel eyes contracting. "You can do that?" She whispered.  
  
"I can." As he looked at the panic-stricken Sasurai, his own amber eye softened. "But I won't. Akito said it depended on what type of person you were. I believe I can trust you, Asamoya-san. Am I correct in assuming so?"   
  
"Hai!" She nodded vigorously.   
  
Hatori allowed himself a faint smile. She looked so relieved… "I'll run a few blood tests, and then you need to rest. Am I understood?"  
  
"Hai," Sasurai repeated, more meekly.   
  
The doctor slid the door open and Shigure rushed in.   
  
"Do you know who I am?" He asked anxiously.  
  
"…Shigure-san?" The girl ventured, wondering if this was some sort of trick question.  
  
"And what's my secret?"  
  
"You have a fetish for purple socks," she said, managing to keep a straight face.  
  
Shigure let out a sort of moaning screech. "Ah, Ha'-san, you've truly suppressed her memories! How could you??"  
  
"Oh, shut up," Hatori muttered. "She's fine, Shigure. I'm just doing a basic checkup on her. And then she's going to sleep because she has school tomorrow."  
  
"Awwwww…"  
  
The man stuck a thermometer into her mouth before she could utter another word of protest. "Don't bite that," he warned her mildly, seeing the look in Sasurai's eyes. "Mercury's highly poisonous."  
  
"…Mmmph."  
  
---The Next Day…---  
  
"Asamoya, what's with your arms? Why are they all bandaged?"  
  
Sasurai was doing her best not to explode. This was the fifth time someone had asked her that.  
  
"Burned 'em," she replied, through gritted teeth.  
  
"Sasurai-san!"  
  
That did it. "FOR THE LAST GODDAMNED TIME, I BURNED MY ARMS, ALL RIGHT?! IS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO FIGURE OUT?!?"  
  
Tohru recoiled, looking suddenly terrified. "A-ah, gomen! I-I didn't mean to anger you, Sasurai-san, please forgive me!"  
  
Arai Sohma turned the page of her book, yawning idly. "It's not you, Honda-san. Sass is just having a bad day."  
  
Sasurai nodded sheepishly, leaning back against the tree. Thank goodness for lunch…being in class with so many curious stares had been almost unbearable. "Gomen, Tohru-kun. I'm just worried about…"  
  
"The fire," Arai finished for her, peering at her friend over the rims of her half-moon glasses. "Have you gone to the house yet?"  
  
Sasu shook her head, her hair flying as she did so. "I'm almost afraid to see it…I still don't know if my mom and my sister got out…"  
  
Arai studied her with cool blue eyes, her gaze unwavering for a few minutes. Her long black hair was tightly braided, as always. "I think--"   
  
"Tohruuuuuuuuu!" A small blonde boy, dressed in the girl's school uniform (only instead of a skirt, he wore shorts), came running up, arms wide open to embrace the girl. He was instantly knuckled in the head by an irritated Kyou.  
  
"Baka, I told you not to hug her in public!"  
  
"Waaaaah! Kyou hit me!" The boy wailed loudly.  
  
The female Sohma rolled her eyes. "He always hits you. Suck it up, Momiji."  
  
"If you two didn't do this every day, we wouldn't have to go through this." This came from a tall boy, with white hair, except at the base, where it darkened to black. His eyes were a dark gray and he seemed somewhat lethargic as he glanced down at Sasurai. "Who are you?"  
  
"Asamoya Sasurai." She raised an eyebrow. "Is that your natural hair color?"  
  
Kyou winced.   
  
"Hai, Asamoya-san, it's his natural hair color." Yuki had arrived now, holding a hand to his forehead. Another day, another headache. "That's Sohma Hatsuharu. And the other is Sohma Momiji."  
  
"This is Sasurai?" Momiji suddenly stopped crying and came closer to examine her with big brown eyes. "She's cute! Can I hug her?"  
  
Hatsuharu sighed wearily. "Momiji--"  
  
"What?" The other protested. "Everybody here knows, don't they?"  
  
"Well, yes, but--" Obviously, this was news to the young white-haired man, as he turned to stare down at Sasurai.   
  
"Then I can hug her!" Without warning, Momiji threw himself at the startled girl.  
  
POOF!  
  
"…So, I'm guessing you're the rabbit," Sasu said dryly, gazing down at the long-eared animal now sitting on her lap.   
  
Hatsuharu blinked. "So you DO know."  
  
"Yep."  
  
"…Hello."  
  
She sweatdropped. "…Hi."  
  
"Isn't this fun?" The rabbit piped up cheerily. "Now I can hug Tohru AND Sasurai!"  
  
Yuki closed his eyes, after looking to see if any of their fellow wandering students had witnessed the transformation. "Fun…" He repeated, as Arai coughed into her hand to disguise a laugh. "Right."  
  
-Later…-  
  
Momiji clung to the hands of both Tohru and Sasurai, humming a happy little tune under his breath. Both girls couldn't keep from grinning down at him. He was just so adorable! Hatsuharu was with them too…Momiji had insisted on "walking the girls home", which meant that the taller boy was stuck with it too. Yuki and Kyou had both said they'd had after-school engagements to take care of, so they wouldn't be home until later.  
  
"He doesn't seem very talkative," Sasurai observed quietly, glancing back at the solemn young man behind them.   
  
"Oh, you should wait until he goes Black! Then he's scary…" Tohru smiled. "Hatsuharu-san just doesn't talk that much. He's actually very nice."  
  
Momiji smiled, bobbing his head enthusiastically. "Yeah, Haru's reaaaal nice! He let me wear my uniform, even when the mean President said I couldn't!"   
  
Sasurai decided not to ask.   
  
---With Yuki and Kyou…---  
  
"Arai said Asamoya-san's house was around this area…" Yuki seemed perplexed, his violet eyes searching the trees for any homes in the vicinity.  
  
"I don't see why she couldn't find it herself," Kyou grumbled. "WE don't know where it is!" He let out a growl of frustration and charged up a small incline, legs churning. "Dammit, this is pointle--"  
  
"Cat got your tongue?" Yuki asked, raising an eyebrow as his cousin broke off in the middle of his sentence, staring at something below.   
  
"I found it." The neko's voice was strangely subdued, and then he cleared his throat. "I found it."  
  
Frowning, Yuki joined the other at the top of the hill--and saw what Kyou had spotted.   
  
There had once been a house there, he was sure. The charred frames suggested that. But they were the only things standing, and they were practically bent, like some grotesque old woman. The rest of the area surrounding it was charred black. Any grass that had once grown there had been reduced to ashes…the burnt remains of a pink shirt fluttered among the ruins of the house, the only thing with color in the entire place.  
  
"…How horrible…"   
  
"I know I should probably be doing homework, but I HAVE to see. You understand, don't you?"  
  
"Hai! I just hope your family is all right…"  
  
"I wanna meet your family, Sasu!"  
  
Both Yuki and Kyou flinched. The approaching voices meant that Sasurai was about to see what remained of her home. And not only her, but Tohru and Momiji as well.  
  
"…Yuki's nearby."  
  
And Hatsuharu.   
  
Within minutes, the four came into view. Hatsuharu saw it first. Without saying a word, he stepped in front of Sasurai, blocking her from seeing the destruction.  
  
"…Hatsuharu-san, what are you doing?" The girl released Momiji's hand and tried to sidle around him, but he moved with her, arms outstretched. Puzzled, she stepped again. He did too. With a frown, she feinted a step, and then darted to the left, in front of the boy.  
  
"Wait!" Yuki cried desperately, but it was too late. She'd already seen.   
  
"Oh my god…" Sasurai took several steps forward and slowly fell to her knees in the center of all the blackened, dead mass, running her fingers through the ash. "How…how could I have let this…happen?" She paused, as her searching fingers hit something cold and hard. Digging in a little deeper, she got a better grip and pulled out a once-golden ring, now more gray than gold. Spotting the purple stone on top, she rubbed her thumb over it.   
  
"…Sasurai-san…" Tohru looked at the girl worriedly. "Are…are you…"  
  
"This is my mother's ring…" Sasurai didn't look up. "She never took it off…and that shirt belonged to my sister, Kiri…" She now began to dig among the rubble with reckless abandon, until she pulled out another item. This one was long, with burn marks etched into its usually-white surface. Judging from the shape… "And this…is my mother's arm…"  
  
Tohru could feel her eyes welling up. "Sasurai-san…"  
  
The other girl suddenly jumped up and took off running, the blood rushing so wildly that she could HEAR it…she could even hear her heart thumping painfully…  
  
"Sasurai-san!!" Tohru started to go after her, but stopped when Hatsuharu (of all people), barred her with one arm.  
  
"…I'll go. The rest of you, go back to the house."   
  
"But, Haruuuuu…"  
  
"GO."  
  
They went.  
  
-OOC-  
  
Heee. I can be so mean some times. Yeah, the end was a bit morbid. I'm tired. And unfortunately, Sasu-chan's pet won't show up this chapter. But he'll be in the next one, I PROMISE! Please review, and I'm sorry for typing when I'm delirious. It tends to make me do weird things. NEXT chapter!  
  
- Hatsuharu and Sasurai have a heart-to-heart…err…well…sorta.   
  
- Haru goes "Black" and Sasu goes "Hell no".  
  
- FINALLY, the pet! adores "The Pet" so much And Kyou's reaction to it… 


	3. Glimpse of a Bud

I guess I need to write this, huh? Honestly, people, I AM trying to update more often, but I've discovered that living in Utah with psycho parents has totally busied up my summer. Anyway…enough excuses. I promised chapter three of Shikizaki and here it is!   
  
Anyways, while three of Mom's friends sit on my bed and ooh and aah at the lightning outside my window, I'll give you a brief synopsis of last chapter.  
  
Sasurai met Hatori, Momiji, and Hatsuharu, discovered her family was killed in the fire, and now Haru's gone after her. Ta-DAH! I'm really quite good at this, ne? XD  
  
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"Asamoya-san!!" Hatsuharu was close to exasperation, glancing around the forested area, and mentally cursing the trees. Why were there so many? He'd never find her if she didn't say anything, and he had to admit this had been a foolish idea. Yuki or Kyou should have gone after her…not him. He was always getting lost, as it were. "Asamoya-san, where are you??"  
  
There was no audible reply, but he saw a leg dangling down from one of the larger trees just up ahead. Sasurai's leg.   
  
Hatsuharu swallowed a rising sigh of relief and strode forward, catching hold of her ankle and tugging gently. "Asamoya-san…"  
  
"Go away." The girl's voice was low, but unshed tears drenched every word. "Just leave me alone."  
  
He shook his head. "You can't stay in that tree forever."  
  
"Watch me."  
  
Sensing that this wasn't going to work, Hatsuharu carefully considered his other options. He could simply drag her down, but then she'd be in his arms, and he didn't really feel like transforming right now. So he switched tactics, releasing his hold on her ankle and leaning back against the rough bark of the tree. His calm gray eyes were hidden underneath closed lids.  
  
Sasurai blinked as a long silence ensued. Had he fallen asleep? Maybe she could just leave now, without being noticed. Stealthily, she started to sidle off her branch, but then he spoke, startling her into jerking her leg back up.  
  
"It hurts, doesn't it?"  
  
She flinched. "What?"  
  
"You know what I'm talking about, Asamoya-san. Seeing your home burnt to the ground, your family…"  
  
"Of course it hurts!" She flared, sudden anger taking hold. "It hurts a lot!"  
  
He nodded wisely. "It will get better, you know."  
  
It took all of Sasurai's willpower not to chuck a pinecone at his head. "What _are_ you, some sort of guidance counselor? I don't need a lecture! GO AWAY!!"  
  
"You're not going to get a lecture and I'm not going away. Everyone wins." Ignoring the disbelieving snort from his treed companion, Hatsuharu continued. "You'll probably have nightmares about this and scream and cry…and there will be people there who will want to make you feel better. But for now, you'll just have to accept this accident or we'll both be here for quite some time."  
  
"Accident?" The brunette chuckled bitterly. "This was no _accident_, Hatsuharu-san. This was planned…a threat, carried out, and I was stupid enough not to take it seriously! Don't you see, this is all my fault!"  
  
So that was it. Not only was her family dead and her house destroyed, but she blamed herself for all of it. Hatsuharu sighed aloud. "What are you talking about?"  
  
Sasurai hesitated, but sensed she couldn't turn back now. She'd already mentioned it and he had already displayed signs that he wasn't going to give up easily.   
  
"About two weeks ago, we started getting strange notes…telling us to leave before we all died…not exactly threats, I guess, but warnings." She glanced down at Hatsuharu, spotting her schoolbag at his feet, propped against the tree, and leapt down. She rummaged through the pockets and finally produced a folded sheet of white paper, handing it to him. With a questioning glance in her direction, he unfolded it and proceeded to read it silently.  
  
**_ "You'll all die, burned to the ground before this week is out if you don't leave now. The curse is forced to continue."_**  
  
Biting her lip, Sasurai dug out still more notes. Hatsuharu read each and every one, his anger building. All promised death…and he recognized the handwriting.   
  
"_Akito_."  
  
"Beg pardon?" The girl shot him a startled look. The boy was standing there, head bowed as he scanned over the words in the most recent warning. Without a word, he crumpled it into a ball and threw it savagely to the ground.   
  
"He killed your family." When he spoke, Sasurai's surprise grew by leaps and bounds. His voice had suddenly grown so cold and hard…and when he looked up, his eyes had developed that very same expression. "That bastard…hurting Rin, and now he's after you. Well, he's _not _going to get away with it! I'll pound him into the ground…once I finish my fight with Kyou…"  
  
"H-Hatsuharu-san?!" She couldn't disguise the genuine shock in her own voice, nor the tremor. "Why… why are you acting so _weird_? You're like a different person…"  
  
He abruptly turned to her, looming over her as he backed her up against the tree. "Don't worry. This won't hurt a bit…but I don't want to see a cute girl like yourself crying…so I'm gonna make it all better. All this just pisses me off!"  
  
As he reached for her, Sasurai's dazed mind suddenly clicked back into action, and Hatsuharu was knocked off his feet by the force of the girl's furious slap.   
  
"Oh, yeah?" She shouted, hands placed defiantly on her hips. "Well, YOU'RE pissing ME off!"   
  
The boy sat up slowly, rubbing his head with that normal calm expression back on his bruised face. "Ouch…"  
  
Sasurai arched an eyebrow, not relaxing her tensed pose at all.  
  
Hatsuharu glanced up at her as he got to his feet, blinking slowly. "I'm sorry."  
  
Out of all the things she had expected, this definitely wasn't one of them. Ordering her mouth to come up with some snappy, or (in the very least) intelligent response to that, all that emerged was, "_HUH_?"  
  
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I should have told you…when I lose my temper, I turn 'Black'." Realizing that Sasurai was studying him as if he'd suddenly sprouted bright pink wings, he amended his previous statement. "Not the color…but it's sort of my darker side. I can't really control it, so I apologize for anything I did." He bowed to her, staring at the ground now. "It's not something I'm proud of…"  
  
Well, the explanation was rather weird…but her whole life was rather weird right now, so the girl accepted this readily. "I forgive you."  
  
He looked up, and Sasurai saw surprise in his gray eyes for the first time since she'd met him. "Just like that?"  
  
She shrugged. "Okay, so you turn 'Black' whenever you get pissed off. What's the big deal? Girls turn 'Black' too."  
  
If he had appeared surprised before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now, jaw actually dropping a few inches. "Really?"  
  
"Yes, but don't tell anyone. It's a little thing that happens every month that we like to call PMS."   
  
Hatsuharu actually laughed at this. It subsided almost immediately, but the warm smile stayed on his face. "I think we should get you back to Sensei's house. They're probably starting to get worried."  
  
Sasurai realized that, for some strange reason, she actually felt better, and managed to muster up a smile in return. It still hurt, but at least it was bearable now and she didn't feel like hiding in a tree, shielded from the rest of the world. "All right, let's go…"   
  
Tucking one hand behind her back, she rolled her mother's ring between her fingers as they headed back.  
  
_--- Kaibara High School, the following morning…---  
_  
"So Haru turned 'Black'?" Arai settled back in her seat with a sigh, absently adjusting her glasses so that they balanced perfectly over the bridge of her nose. "Sorry…should've warned you."  
  
"Warned me about what? That your cousin has the male version of PMS?" Sasurai shook her head, twirling one brown pigtail around her index finger. "It's fine. Don't worry about it. The only thing you should've warned me about was how loud Shigure-san gets."  
  
Tohru giggled at this. "He was just worried about you, Sasurai-san."  
  
Kyou jumped into the conversation. "You think that was bad…you didn't hear him before you got back, screeching about how Haru was going to take advantage of the poor, little innocent schoolgirl in the woods."  
  
Yuki raised an eyebrow, studying his hot-tempered cousin with cool violet eyes. "Yes, that's when he said Haru was going to turn out just like you, didn't he?"  
  
"Nobody asked you, YOU DAMN NEZU--"  
  
**WHACK**. Poor Kyou became the unfortunate victim of his teacher's cynical attention--and her binder.   
  
"K-Kyou-kun!" Tohru cried out, as the neko stumbled forward slightly with a hiss of pain.  
  
The teacher shook her head slowly. "Keep your voice down, punk, or I really WILL dye your hair black." Seemingly from nowhere, she produced a box of hair dye, the color labeled as "Ravishing Midnight", and tossed it up and down. "So go ahead. Keep yelling. I hated your hair color, anyway."  
  
"I'd like to see you try!" Kyou shot back. "I'm not afraid of--"  
  
"Everyone, return to your seats!" She raised her voice so the chattering class could hear her. "Thanks to Orangey, we'll be having a pop quiz on what you were SUPPOSED to read last night."  
  
Nearly everyone groaned, except for Tohru, who was merely looking puzzled, and Kyou, who was seething. Yuki, Sasurai, Arai, and the rest of his classmates were all looking at him murderously. The teacher, however, merely smirked, knowing full well of the enormous power she wielded over her helpless students.   
  
"Odayaka!" She barked at a girl wearing a black headband in her auburn hair. "Hand out the test papers!" ((A/N: Remember her…))  
  
The girl obeyed, and the class reluctantly settled down to take the quiz, one or more of them sending the occasional furious stare Kyou's way.  
  
Sasurai had just finished answering the third question when she caught a small movement out of the corner of her eye…but when she turned her head, there was nothing there. Slightly baffled and wondering if it had just been her imagination, she turned back to her quiz-- only to feel a slight weight on her left foot. She glanced down.  
  
Staring up at her with big brown eyes was a pug. The small fawn-colored dog wagged its curly tail and shifted slightly so all of its bulk rested squarely on the girl's foot.   
  
Sasurai glanced around uneasily. So far, no one had noticed and she decided to smuggle the pug out…until Kinosita Minami, a girl who usually wore her hair in two short high pigtails and was the Vice President of the "Prince Yuki fan club", suddenly screamed, pointing at the panting dog on Sasurai's foot. "Makuyo-sensei!! Makuyo-sensei!! Asamoya-san has a dog on her foot!'  
  
_Thank you soooo much, Minami._   
  
The teacher looked up, glancing in Sasurai's general direction.  
  
"Asamoya."  
  
"H-hai?"  
  
"Is there a dog on your foot?"  
  
_Just say no, just say no, just say--_  
  
"Ummm…hai. B-but I swear I don't even know how he got there!" She replied hastily, leaning down to pick up the snorting anomaly. He wasn't wearing a collar…  
  
"Is he your dog?"  
  
Sasurai looked down uncertainly at the dog in her lap, now methodically licking her hands. "Uh…"  
  
"If it is, he must have followed you to school. Call your parents and have them take him home."  
  
The brunette froze, and Tohru, gazing at her new friend, discovered that the girl had gone chalk-white. Yuki must have seen this also, for he raised his hand.  
  
"Makuyo-sensei, that's my dog."  
  
Makuyo placed a hand to her forehead. "I don't care WHOSE dog it is, just get it out of here!"   
  
Almost immediately, the bell rang, and the class fled in relief, talking excitedly amongst themselves. Arai and Tohru escorted a very pale, teary-eyed Sasurai out of the classroom, her arms wrapped around the pug. Yuki and Kyou followed, and Hatsuharu and Momiji soon joined them.   
  
"Mou, Sasurai, what's wrong??" The little blonde cried in alarm, seeing the tearstains on her cheeks.   
  
"And what are you going to do with that beast?" Kyou added, eyeing the dog with extreme distaste.   
  
The girl managed a watery smile, hugging the little canine closer as it licked her wet face. "I'm fine, Momiji-kun…just got a little sentimental. And as for the beast, I think I'm going to keep it. If…Shigure-san doesn't mind."  
  
"Shigure loves dogs," Yuki assured her. "He won't mind at all."  
  
"I mind!!" Kyou yelled. "I'm not sharing a house with something that SLOBBERS!"  
  
"_You _slobber when you sleep," the other boy said coolly.   
  
"I DO NOT!!"  
  
Ignoring the squabbling twosome, one loud and passionate, and the other completely calm, Hatsuharu turned to Sasurai, absently wiping her moist eyes with the sleeve of his school uniform. "What are you going to call it?"  
  
"I'm going to call him Pug."  
  
"Oh, THAT'S original."  
  
"Shut up, baka neko."  
  
"MAKE ME!"  
  
Arai mimicked their teacher, rubbing her forehead wearily. "Hoo boy…"  
  
The newly-christened "Pug" snorted.   
  
-OOC-  
  
I'm starting to like this story, once it cooperates with me. And I'm definitely gonna have fun with this next chapter. Ayame fans, rejoice! Anyway, please review and stuff (I should never write while I'm braindead, so if this sucks, you'll know why), aaaaaand…NEXT chapter!  
  
-Sasurai starts looking for a job! And somehow, ice-cream scooper doesn't seem to work…  
  
-Tohru discovers there's a position open at a certain dress shop owned by a certain arrogant Zodiac member…so Arai and Sasurai head down to check it out and meet -TA-DAH!- AYAME! And Mine, of course.   
  
-When Ayame accidentally transforms into a snake, we learn that Sasurai has a certain phobia…o.o  
  
7 pages…-thunk- I guess Writer's block can't hold you down forever, ne? 


	4. The Job hunt

I'm having too much fun with this fic and I'm not sure why. I think I'm just on a Fruits Basket kick right now. No worries, YYH fans, Touketsu's getting updated after this. I just write what wants to be written. I actually don't choose. If someone told you it's the author who chooses when and what to update…somebody LIED. Ne, Shigure?  
  
Shigure: Yes, indeed! I am governed by my works and high-school girls!  
  
Kia: o.O NANI??  
  
Shigure: Oops, did I just say that out loud?  
  
Kia: You…are…a…PERVERT.   
  
Shigure: We each have our fantasies, Kia-chan. Divulge in them once in awhile!  
  
Kia: x.x Baka. Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviewed, and also to Mai-chan, who renewed my creativity in a timely FB RP and now…I have somehow acquired Shigure as a muse. O.o We'll see how this works out. Last chapter, Sasurai met Black Haru, had a somewhat strange heart-to-heart with him, and got a new pet…a pug! Now keep in mind Pug is not The Pug AKA Supah Puggeh AKA Jason. There is only one The Pug. And Pug is just a pug. Thought I should clear that up…or confuse you more. I'm gonna shut up and write now.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Sasurai was duly grateful to Shigure and his housemates for allowing her to stay with them for as long as she needed to…but she still felt guilty about it and wasn't sure what to do. It was actually Arai who came up with a solution when her friend confessed her minor dilemma.  
  
"Get yourself a job," she advised calmly, removing her glasses and polishing them on her dark blue skirt. "Then you can pay Sensei for room and board and you'll stop beating yourself up about being a freeloader."  
  
Sasurai could've hugged her, but the look on Arai's stoic face indicated that she'd prefer not to be embraced just then, having finished her cleaning and slipping her glasses back on. "What would I do without you, Arai?"  
  
The raven-haired girl shrugged, flipping her long braid over her shoulder. "Dunno, Sass. Die alone in a gutter or something."  
  
Somehow, the girl sensed her companion was only half-joking.  
  
--------  
  
Once she arrived at Shigure's house after school (she still had problems calling it "home"), Sasurai sat down at the kotatsu with a willing Tohru to peruse the paper for any "Wanted" ads while Kyou lay sprawled beside them, dozing lightly.  
  
"Here's someone who needs a babysitter…I could do that…no, wait…" Sasurai read further, and then cringed. "For seven kids…"  
  
"I'm sure you'd be very good with children, Sasurai-san!" Tohru said loyally.  
  
"No, I'd probably strangle one or two and lock the rest in a closet." The girl chuckled quietly and continued to scan the ads, one hand resting on a snoozing Pug's head. As Yuki had predicted, Shigure adored the dog and was more than willing to let him stay. "An ice-cream scooper…'must be twenty-one or older'…never mind."   
  
It was actually Yuki who found it. ((A/N: I know I said it'd be Tohru, but I decided to change it.)) Once he'd come inside from working in his small garden, he'd joined the brunettes in their search. He'd been circling some likely prospects and taking occasional sips from his cup of tea when he suddenly choked and spat his mouthful all over the paper.  
  
"Yuki-kun! Are you all right?" Tohru cried, half-rising to see if he was all right.   
  
The boy nodded, coughing. "Ayame…he's got an ad in here for a model."  
  
"WHAT?!" Kyou swiftly sat up, almost clunking heads with Sasurai, who had leaned over to see what ad Yuki had sprayed tea all over.   
  
The violet-eyed boy read it aloud to a captivated audience. "I, the magnificent Ayame, am now accepting applicants for a modeling position at my equally-magnificent store, Ayame. Willing to train. Must apply in person and be totally cute. Hahahahaha!"  
  
"That idiot." Kyou rolled his eyes expressively. "I can't believe he did that."  
  
"It's perfect!" Tohru exclaimed enthusiastically, grabbing Sasurai's hands in hers. "Sasurai-san, you should go apply!"  
  
The girl stared at her with widened hazel eyes. "T-Tohru-kun, I can't! I've never modeled before!"  
  
"It says he'll train you. And you're cute!" The other brunette giggled. "Sasurai-san, you _have_ to apply for this! It'll be fun!"  
  
Desperate, Sasurai cast about for an excuse--and found one. "Well…it sounds great, but he didn't leave an address!"  
  
_ Ha. NOW she can't make me go._  
  
Tohru remained undeterred. "That's all right! Yuki-kun knows where it is! Ayame-san _is _his older brother, after all!"  
  
_Dammit!_  
  
Yuki looked just about as horrified as their newest house guest felt. He opened his mouth as if to protest, took one look at Tohru's smiling face, and resolutely closed it. Sasurai knew her fate was sealed.  
  
--The Next Day--  
  
"This is the place." Yuki stood at the entrance of his brother's dress shop, then glanced back at the two he had guided here.  
  
Arai nodded approvingly. "Cute place. Ayame did a good job with it." She nudged Sasurai, who was eyeing the store with a look of extreme apprehension and deftly steered her reluctant friend inside with Yuki taking the lead.  
  
The inside was filled with hangers and clothing racks of nurse outfits, extravagant maid outfits, and even something that resembled a leopard-print loincloth. Several plush couches and chairs and a few wooden tables were placed randomly around the shop, some articles of clothing draped over several of the chair arms. A young woman wearing a black and white maid's outfit was sitting in one of the afore-mentioned chairs, busily working on what looked like a lacey white skirt. She appeared to be sewing big white bows just above the hemline, her two brown braids bobbing about her head as she worked, humming to herself in a cheery manner.  
  
Yuki cleared his throat as the three approached her. "Kuramae-san…?"  
  
The woman glanced up, brown eyes dancing merrily behind a pair of circular frames. "Ah! Sohma-kun! It's wonderful to see you here! And you brought friends!"  
  
"Hai." The boy bowed, moving aside to introduce his two female companions. "This is Sohma Arai, my cousin, and this is Asamoya Sasurai. She's here about the ad Ayame put in the newspaper."  
  
He turned to Sasurai--and saw that she was staring at something over his head, her mouth hanging open slightly. With a feeling of misgiving, he looked over his shoulder.   
  
A man with extremely long silvery hair was drifting towards them, wearing a fuzzy pink maid's outfit, complete with matching hairpiece (which was even fuzzier). "Yukiiiiiiiiiii!"  
  
"Asamoya-san, meet my brother, Sohma Ayame." Yuki looked pained as Ayame stopped in front of them, beaming.   
  
"You're here about the job??" The strange man leapt forward and seized Sasurai's hands in his larger ones, dragging her forward and swooping down on one knee to plant a chaste kiss on the back of one of her hands (thankfully, he'd released the other one). "Well, you're definitely cute enough! You're adorable!"  
  
And you're scary… The brunette looked at him, trying not to look as flabbergasted as she felt…and probably failing miserably. "A-ano…why are you wearing--"  
  
"Oh, someone commissioned this and since I'm about his size, I'm trying it on for him! Isn't it _precious_?"   
  
This wasn't helping. "A MAN ordered that? For…himself??"  
  
"Someone ordered a wedding dress for himself once," Yuki informed her. "My brother was wearing it when I first came here with Honda-san."  
  
"Ah, yes. Yuki's first romance!" Ayame let out a booming laugh which made both girls jump. "Coincidentally, the same man ordered this outfit. 'Rai-chan! Come give your favorite cousin a big hug!"  
  
"I'd rather not." Arai glanced in the woman's direction. "I don't like showing affection in public."  
  
Poor Sasurai was even more confused now. Was Ayame a member of the Zodiac? But if he had wanted Arai, who wasn't cursed, to hug him, he probably wasn't.   
  
"Ah, yes. 'Rai-chan, Sasu-chan, this is my lovely and talented assistant, Kuramae Mine."   
  
The woman rose, bowing politely to the introduced, who both bowed back. "It's a pleasure to meet you both! Asamoya-chan, you're going to apply for the job?" Her voice was soft, but sounded quite young for a woman.  
  
"Well, actually, I--"  
  
"She's perfect, isn't she, Mine?" Ayame placed a hand firmly on her shoulder. "I'll need you here on weekdays and some holidays in the afternoon. Does that work out for you?"  
  
"I--"  
  
"Mine, will you please go and get some tea for our guests? It's been so long since Yuki and I have talked."  
  
"Not long enough," Yuki muttered under his breath.  
  
If Ayame heard, he pretended not to. "So then, Sasu-chan, how about it? Do you accept my magnanimous offer? Will you work at my prestigious store and bring honor to the name Ayame? The world will be dazzled by yours and Mine's cuteness and my gorgeous brilliance and together, we will rise to the very peaks of fame and stardom in the world of fashion!"  
  
"But I--"  
  
"Of course, I'll pay you about eight dollars an hour. All you have to do is try on the outfits while we make alterations and sometimes you may have to wear them for advertising purposes, but that's it!"  
  
Sasurai thought hard before she opened her mouth again. She had to find a way to pay Shigure back for his kindness in letting her stay, and here Ayame was, offering her a job. If she wanted to help out the Sohmas, she couldn't be choosy.   
  
"All right…I accept."  
  
"Yay!" Mine reentered the room, bearing a silver tray loaded with five cups of steaming tea. She set this down on one of the polished tables and smiled warmly at Sasurai. Then something in her eyes flashed and she took a closer look at both girls. "Hmm…of course! Why didn't I see it before? Come with me, I have the perfect outfits for each of you!"  
  
Now looking slightly dismayed, Arai made a beeline for the door, but Mine was too quick for her. She grabbed the girl by the wrist, took Sasurai's hand and dragged them both into a dressing room near the back of the shop.  
  
Ayame chuckled as he watched the two captives being hauled away with twin expressions of utmost suffering, glancing down at the sweatdropping Yuki. "I did mention Mine has a thing for dressing up cute girls, ne?"  
  
"_**Ayame, I'm going to disembowel you and feed your innards to Sasurai's snorting beast once I get out of here**_."  
  
Yuki shook his head. "Arai's not as nice as Honda-san, you know."  
  
"That's what makes it even more fun! Now, let's have some brotherly bonding time!"  
  
--Twenty Minutes Later--  
  
"It could be worse," Sasurai mumbled, as Mine rapidly braided several strands of her light hair with green ribbons.  
  
"Oh?" Arai replied acidly, her own hair falling to her waist, with half of it swept up and braided around her head in a sort of halo and the rest let down. "Tell me, Sass, how could it be worse?"  
  
Her friend sighed. "We could be wearing Ayame-san's maid outfit."  
  
A long pause. Then… "Point taken. I'm _still_ going to cause him severe damage."  
  
"Whatever floats your boat."   
  
"All done!" Ayame's assistant chirped, ushering them out of the dressing room. "Tencho, they're finished!"  
  
Sasurai wanted to crawl under the nearest table and stay there until the sun blew up and no one was left to see her in such an outfit. She was wearing a three-quarter-sleeved dress of pale green, with a billowy skirt that covered the floor, hiding her slippered feet from view. Ribbons of a darker emerald decorated her throat, both wrists, and several braided strands of hair. The one around her throat had a small pearl in the center, like some sort of choker.   
  
Arai didn't look any happier than her costumed friend, having been stuffed into a bright blue one-piece business suit, the tight skirt ending just above her knees. A row of gleaming golden buttons ran down to where the top half blended with the skirt and ended there. Short-heeled pumps (also blue) covered her feet. At the collar, a black brooch framed in gold nestled against a navy bow. Her hair swished about as she valiantly stalked across the room to an applauding Ayame, one hand clutching her removed glasses in a grip so hard that Sasurai feared they'd break.   
  
"**_Ayame…_**"  
  
"Excellent job as always, Mine!" Ayame squealed, clapping even more vigorously. "Your fashion skills are almost as impeccable as my own!"  
  
Mine jumped up and down, hands pressed together like an excited schoolgirl. "Yay! The tencho complimented me! I got a compliment!" She smiled happily at the two girls, who both managed tight-lipped smiles…sort of like an uplifted grimace. "I'll go get snacks to go with the tea!" She scurried away and Arai allowed the painful grin to fade off her pale face.   
  
"I'm _never_--" She started towards Ayame, but her heels snagged on the corner on one of the rugs and she pitched forward. The man ran forward to catch his cousin as Yuki cried out, "No, don't!"  
  
Too late. The instant Ayame's arms went around the girl's body, the two Sohmas were enveloped in white smoke.   
  
"Ayame-san! Arai, daijoubu desu ka??" Sasurai leapt forward to help them, when she felt something slither under her dress and twist around her ankle. Almost warily, she lifted the hem and lifted her leg to see what it was.  
  
A white snake had wrapped itself around her ankle, looking up at her apologetically.  
  
"I get so terribly cold, you see, and your legs are so warm--"  
  
The brunette stared down at the reptile, her eyes wide in unveiled terror.  
  
"_EYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_!!!!!!"  
  
"I should have told you," Arai said dryly, accepting a stunned Yuki's hand and rising to her feet as Sasurai hopped by, shaking her leg frantically in the hopes of dislodging her unwelcome passenger. "Sass has a phobia of snakes."  
  
Yuki sweatdropped. "Oh, really?"  
  
"Tencho? Is everything all right?" Mine peered curiously into the room, glasses lopsided. "I thought I heard Asamoya-chan scream…" Then she blinked. "Where did tencho go?"  
  
"Errr…"  
  
"She's practicing for our high school production," Arai interrupted smoothly. "It involves a dance called the Time Warp and she's merely doing her solo, in which she screams and continually jumps to the left. Ayame went to the bathroom."   
  
Mine seemed to accept this without further questioning and returned back to her task of rummaging for edibles. Arai waited until the door had shut and then reached down and tugged the snake off.  
  
"Ayame, that was rather idiotic of you."  
  
"I was just trying to save you!" the creature protested. "You could at least throw yourself at my feet and thank me profusely!"  
  
"You don't _have _feet."  
  
Sasurai was watching them, panting heavily. "That…that…Ayame-san??"  
  
**_POOF!_**  
  
"I rarely transform at my shop," Ayame assured the girl, as she quickly turned away, her face covered in a bright blush so as not to see his nakedness. "If you don't trip then we should be fine. Although I can't believe you're afraid of snakes…they're so noble! Why, even Kandra-sama had the most magnificent boa constrictor--he blessed my royal family, you see, and--"   
  
Arai and Yuki both sighed. "I think it's time we headed back," the former growled. "Sasurai, are you still going to take the job or not?"  
  
Fear still clogged her throat, but Sasurai thought of why she had originally sought a job, and slowly nodded.   
  
"Good, good!" Ayame finished changing and patted the newest employee on the head. "I'll see you tomorrow, then! And as a gift, you two can keep those outfits, free of charge! In fact, you can even wear them home! It'll be great publicity !"  
  
"Not a chance," Arai notified him, as she and Sasurai fled back into the dressing rooms. The latter was still shaken, but managed to calm herself down while she changed back into her ordinary clothes.  
  
_ Another day, another Sohma. I wonder what's next…  
_  
-OOC-  
  
Yes, well, once again, brain-dead! Woo for braindeadness activity! -cough- So, please review while I start on the NEXT chapter!  
  
- Kyou and Yuki are fighting again! But what happens when Sasurai gets dragged into it?  
  
- It's the battle of the leeks and it's rather weird! Who will triumph-- Sasurai or Kyou?  
  
- Sasurai meets another Sohma! And Miss Piggy ain't got NOTHING on her! That's right, it's Kagura, and it's time for Kyou to run!  
  
I love doing this. I really do. 


	5. Battle of the Leeks

And here we are, minna-san, another day, another chapter! Or…something like that. Lola-gurl…I have NO idea what I'm going to do about pairings. At first, I was going to pair Sasurai with Hatsuharu, but now I'm not sure. . Ideas would be much appreciated, and yes, Arai is being paired with someone, so you won't have to worry about her. But like I said, I have no clue what I'm going to do about Sasurai, so if you have any ideas at all, please tell me!  
  
Shigure: I think you should pair her up with m--  
  
Kia: Shigure…-twitch--   
  
Shigure: But honestly, I'm hurt! I wasn't in your last chapter at all!  
  
Kia: -tosses him her photo album- Well, you're in this one!   
  
Shigure: -flips through pictures- High-school girls, high-school girls…  
  
Kia: -sweatdrop- Uh, right. Anyway, Sasurai got a job last time and discovered Ayame was the Snake! Let's see what's going on this time!  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"How long have they been going at it?" Sasurai asked Tohru, calmly munching on a leek.   
  
The other girl had one hand pressed to her mouth as they both watched Kyou and Yuki bicker in front of them, as if the two were some fascinating television show. "I don't know…they were arguing when I came in from shopping." The look on her face was one of concern. "I hope they don't fight again."  
  
Sasurai nodded, briefly tearing her warm hazel eyes away from the sight to look at her friend. "Kyou's already broken the paper door twice today, hasn't he?"  
  
"Hai…"  
  
"Leeks! Leeks! ARRRGH! We've had leeks every day for the past week!" Kyou yelled, waving his arms like a high-speed windmill. "I'm not eating them anymore!"  
  
"Sumimasen!" Tohru interrupted. "Kyou-kun, t-that is entirely my fault! I discovered that they were on sale, and I could not resist buying them, but I can take them ba--"  
  
Yuki quietly shook his head. "Iie, Honda-san, you were only doing what was best for us. It's not your fault that the baka neko is acting even stupider than usual." He turned to the irate orange-headed boy. "You'll eat them or you won't eat anything. Honda-san is working too hard for you to be complaining about plants."  
  
"Don't tell me what to do, you damn rat!"  
  
"I'll tell you whatever I want!" In one fluid movement, the nezumi took the bowl of leeks that Sasurai had been eating out of and, with a hand motion too fast for the human eye to detect, shoved a handful of the greens down Kyou's throat.   
  
Kyou gagged, spitting them out almost immediately. "I…_SAID_…DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!" He knocked the bowl out of Yuki's hands. The item went flying sideways and collided with Sasurai's forehead, knocking the girl flat on her back.   
  
"Sasurai-san!!" Panicking, Tohru knelt beside her friend. "D-daijoubu desu ka?? Ah!! You're bleeding!"  
  
"Look what you did!" Yuki shot at his cousin, walking over to join Tohru. "Asamoya-san, I apologize for my cousin's rude behavior…" The two helped Sasurai sit up, who was now sporting a nasty-looking cut on her forehead. The bowl (which had broken upon impact with the floor) and its contents lay scattered by her feet.  
  
"A-ah…umm…I…I-I…" Kyou couldn't seem to remove his gaze from the blood steadily dripping from the forehead wound.   
  
"Sohma…_Kyou_…" Ignoring Tohru's attempts to clean off the blood with a cloth, Sasurai leapt to her feet, brandishing an uneaten leek. Before the neko could make any attempt to defend himself, she'd lunged at him and struck him hard across the cheek with her little vegetable weapon.  
  
It seemed that Sohma Kyou and Asamoya Sasurai had both made crucial mistakes. Sasurai didn't enjoy getting hit in the head with a heavy bowl. And Kyou wasn't too elated to be slapped with his loathed food nemesis…wielded by a _girl_, no less!   
  
"Bring it on, you damned tomboy! I'm not going to go easy on you!"  
  
"Who said I wanted you to?"  
  
"Normally, I don't fight girls, but I'll make an exception for you!"  
  
"Fine by me!" The incensed brunette yelled in response, and within minutes, the two brawlers were involved in a combination of a duel with leeks and a martial arts fight, with Tohru and Yuki looking on in surprise and horror…well, horror for the former, anyway.  
  
"A-a-ano, Yuki-kun, shouldn't we stop them…?" The onigiri asked nervously.  
  
Yuki sighed. "I think it's best if we just let them wear themselves out, Honda-san."  
  
"Tadaima!" A familiar, cheery voice called out. "Tohru-kun, Sasu-chan, Kyou-kun, Yuki-kun! The master of the house has returned with guests!"  
  
"Shigure-san!" Tohru went to greet him.   
  
The inu grinned. "Sorry I'm late. 'Haa-san and I were taking care of Akito, and look! I brought a bunny and a cow with me!" He stepped aside to reveal Momiji and Hatsuharu, one looking like a little Dutch girl and the other looking like someone you'd meet at a rave. Truthfully, Tohru _still _had trouble convincing herself that they were the same age.  
  
"Konban wa ((A/N: Good evening)), Hatsuharu-san, Momiji-kun!" The girl bowed and Hatsuharu nodded. Momiji, however, threw himself at Tohru with a gleeful drawn-out yelling on her name.  
  
**_POOF!_**  
  
"You'd better be glad we all know, Momiji," Yuki said sternly, as the rabbit cuddled up to Tohru's chest.  
  
"Where's Sasu? I wanna see her too!"  
  
"Well, actually, Kyou-kun and Sasurai-san are…" The brunette gestured helplessly at the kitchen scene, where both fighters had abandoned their drooping and battered leeks and had settled for hand-to-hand combat. They both seemed exhausted and neither one had managed to block every hit, so it seemed evenly matched.  
  
"Stop moving, dammit!" Kyou yowled furiously.  
  
Sasurai raised an eyebrow while blocking one of his punches. "And what? Stand there and let you beat the crap out of me? I thought you believed in fighting…FAIR!" She ducked under one of his swings, swooped low, and swept his feet out from under him with one of her legs. The boy toppled over and she backed away as he landed on the floor with a painful thunk.   
  
"Yay! Sasu won!" Momiji hopped out of Tohru's arms and over to Sasurai, who knelt to pet him behind the ears. "Kyou, did you go easy on her?"  
  
Hatsuharu walked over to join them. "Because if you didn't, that was pretty pathetic."  
  
"That's not a girl!" The neko pointed to her. "Yuki's more girly than she is! That's a bit--"  
  
This time, it was Yuki who sent Kyou flying…courtesy of the paper door and a well-placed kick.  
  
Sasurai straightened, Momiji nestled contentedly in her arms. "Uh…sorry about that. I…err…we sorta got mad…"  
  
Shigure, having gone to the bathroom, returned with a packaged band-aid, which he tossed to Hatsuharu. "Here, 'Haa-kun, put this on her cut. It's all right, Sasu-chan. Kyou-kun deserves to be humiliated every once in awhile."  
  
"But--"  
  
"He'll be fine," Hatsuharu reassured her, taking her chin in his hand and turning her head to look at him so he could place the band-aid on her forehead. "Kyou's tough."  
  
Shigure grinned. "Except when he's up against the power of love."  
  
Sasurai, Tohru, and Momiji all looked at him in puzzlement, but Yuki smiled. "You'll see."  
  
---**Outside**---  
  
"Kyou-kun! Kyou-kun!"  
  
Groaning, the boy cracked open his eyelids…and looked into a pair of large gray eyes, belonging to a worried-looking petite girl with shoulder-length dark brown hair.   
  
"Oh no…not YOU!" Cursing, he pushed himself to the feet, backing away from her.   
  
Looking hurt at his reaction, her eyes welled up with large, pearly tears which threatened to fall. "K-Kyou-kun…why…why are you acting so mean? I came here to see how you were doing, and you were lying so still…I…I was so…"  
  
Kyou, doing his best to resist her tears, suddenly stiffened as her eyes took on a murderous glint.  
  
"**_I WAS WORRIED THAT YOU'D BEEN KILLED_**!" Her fist crashed into his already-tender cheek and he went crashing backwards into the little garden that Tohru and Yuki doted on, flattening several green stalks of leeks under his body. Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to recover before she'd grabbed his ankle and went running towards the house, laughing maniacally between loud declarations of her love for him.  
  
Sasurai stood between Shigure and Hatsuharu, staring at the strange spectacle of some sweet-looking girl dashing back and forth, waving a bloodied Kyou like a kite while shrieking things.  
  
"Kyou-kun, I…LOVE YOU! WE SHALL NEVER BE PARTED!! **BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**!!"  
  
"Umm…" The stunned brunette slowly turned to look at the others. "Is…she…a friend of yours?"  
  
Shigure chuckled, rubbing his chin. "She's Sohma Kagura. Want to guess which member of the Zodiac she is?"  
  
"…The crazy, psychotic homicidal one?"  
  
Hatsuharu smiled faintly. "No, she's the Boar. She's madly in love with Kyou and she's usually very shy and sweet, but sometimes she changes her personality and becomes like that. It's kind of scary, I guess."  
  
"You're one to talk," Yuki murmured, and Sasurai, remembering Black Haru, couldn't help agreeing.   
  
Kagura chose that moment to look up, halting in front of them. She suddenly looked embarrassed and dropped the poor neko on the ground. "G…gomen! I was just so worried about him that I guess I got a little…_enthusiastic_ about seeing that he was still alive!" She smiled timidly at a pale-faced Sasurai, who was tentatively prodding Kyou with her foot to see if he was still breathing. "I'm Sohma Kagura…you must be Asamoya Sasurai-san. Arai told me all about you!"  
  
The other girl nodded. "Nice…to meet…you?" She could see what Hatsuharu meant when he mentioned changing personalities.   
  
Tohru (who was now holding Momiji) waved from behind Sasurai. "Konban wa, Kagura-san! Would you and Momiji-kun and Hatsuharu-san like to have dinner with us?"  
  
"Hai!! Arigato, Tohru-kun!" Kagura squealed and leaped forward to hug the onigiri, accidentally jostling Sasurai and knocking her off the porch in the process. Kyou (who, as it turned out, was indeed alive, just sorely injured) automatically sat up and put out his arms to keep her from crashing headfirst into the ground, even if they had been fighting earlier.   
  
**_ POOF!  
_**  
Sasurai and the orange cat both hit the grass, the latter bouncing a few feet before he rolled to a stop, entangled in his clothes.   
  
"Arigato," the girl muttered, pushing herself up with her hands.  
  
"Sasu-chan, are you--ACK!"   
  
Shigure, on the route of going to assist his young houseguest, tripped over Momiji, who was perched near the edge of the porch, nose twitching. He rammed into Hatsuharu, and both fell off, landing right on Sasurai, who had just gotten up and was promptly knocked down again.  
  
**_ POOF! POOF!_**  
  
"With a cat, it's fine," the girl sighed, a minute later. "With a dog, I can handle it. But with a dog _and _a cow sitting on me, it's kind of painful!"  
  
"You act as if I'm _fat_," the black canine grumbled, shifting slightly so that his muzzle wasn't buried in her chest.  
  
Kagura and Tohru ran to salvage poor Sasurai from the bottom of the pile, and so another adventure ended. The next one would start soon enough.  
  
-**OOC**-  
  
Whoo, that was fun, writing this until 11 at night! I didn't think I'd get the chance to write it tomorrow, since I'll be packing for San Diego, so I figured I had to finish tonight. And now it's done and I'm sorry it's short, but there you go.  
  
Shigure: I'm in this chapter! I'm in this chapter!  
  
Kia: And you'll have a short appearance in the next one too! NEXT chapter!  
  
-Momiji gets picked on by some high-school thugs! Sasurai shows up, but things quickly grow bad for both of them!  
  
- Our favorite usagi runs to get help and ends up running into Hatsuharu…things are going to get interesting when Black Haru arrives!  
  
- I can't say much, but it's time to call the doctor! And a "special" moment with Akito, in which he actually appears in the chapter. Sort of…x.x Shutting up now. 


	6. Bunny Brawl

I really don't like this computer right now. In fact, I'm hating this computer right now. It won't let me on the Internet!! Argh…anyway, this means I'll get some time to work on this story, and I'm very fond of it…I'm just frustrated that I can't talk to anyone, due to horrible connections. Grrr…. Maybe it'll let me on later tonight or something, although it's been like this all day. Actually, by the time I post this, I will have given up on venting my rage against the beast, but right now…nobody cares! Whoo!  
  
Anyway, last chapter, Sasurai and Kyou got into a leek fight, and the former even got to meet meek little Kagura!  
  
Shigure: …Meek? Are we talking about the same Kagura?  
  
Kia: …Yes. We are. So she met Kyou's violent little stalk--  
  
Shigure: You just said she was meek. Really, Kia-chan, you'll just confuse your readers if you continue typing like that. And so many of them are high-school girls and we really don't want to scare THEM off, do we?  
  
Kia: …  
  
--Two Minutes Later--  
  
Shigure: bound and gagged  
  
Kia: -.- I could've gotten Hatori…or Hatsuharu…or Yuki or Momiji…but noooo, I got Shigure for a muse!  
  
Shigure: Mmpreh serph, serph, Kimprhranph! ((Que sera, sera, Kia-chan!))  
  
Kia: Indeed. Moving on…considering this Author's note is ANCIENT…  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Yuhi you yamani…teru-teru Momiji…"  
  
Momiji was bored. And when he was bored, he sang. And, as it so happened, the song he was singing was his very own song that he had made up all by himself. He consoled himself by thinking of his companions while he skipped to Shigure's house. Hatori was there today, and so didn't pick them up as usual.  
  
Yuki had had to stay after school for a student council meeting. Tohru and her two fun friends were playing badminton with a reluctant Kyou and Arai. Hatsuharu had been forced to stay after for detention after trying to beat up one of the upperclassmen for making rude comments about his hair, and Sasurai was having a talk with her guidance counselor about the death of her family.  
  
"It's basically me trapped in a room with some big-eyed woman who keeps cooing like some sort of diseased pigeon every time I say the words 'death', 'dead', or mention anything ten feet under," she had tried to explain to a confused-looking bunny. "And then she makes me draw pictures of how I feel. I could draw a **RAINBOW **in a field of flowers and she'd think I was too grief-stricken to go on!"  
  
"Draw a bunny!" Momiji suggested, smiling up at the girl innocently. "That makes _everybody _happy!"  
  
Sasurai had decided not to comment and merely tweaked his nose before heading for the condemned counseling office with the air of a prisoner trudging to the guillotine.  
  
"Konnichi--" Momiji stopped singing, having bumped into somebody. With a small squeak of surprise, he stumbled backwards, gaining his balance before he fell over. He looked up, wondering who he had bumped into--and continued to look up…and up…and up.  
  
Glaring down at him with an irritated scowl was a lanky boy dressed in the Kaibara school uniform, his arms folded against his chest. Brown eyes so dark that his pupils couldn't be seen glared down at the short Sohma. "What the hell did you hit me for?!" He demanded irately. "Are you stupid or something?"  
  
Momiji was at a loss for words, blinking repeatedly at the taller boy. He looked familiar…  
  
Thick dark eyebrows furrowed when the other realized that Momiji wasn't going to answer him. "Well? Don't you know who I am, you little punk??"  
  
Then he remembered. At last, a question he could answer! "You're Koujiiiiii!" The bunny answered cheerfully. "You're the one that Haru got mad at!"  
  
"Koujiiiiiii"'s scowl, if anything, darkened. "You KNOW that bastard?"  
  
"Hai, he's my cousin!" That word "bastard"…he'd heard it before…but he couldn't remember what it meant. Ah, well. It had a nice ring to it, so it couldn't be all that bad, right?  
  
The boy took a closer look at Momiji, a strange flicker in his shadowy oculars signifying his recognition. "You…you're that little Sohma kid! The one who runs around in a girl's uniform like a pansy!"  
  
"Pansies are flowers," Momiji corrected him. "And it looks good on me!"  
  
Kouji sighed. "In any case, this will help me vent my frustration--"  
  
"Oi, Kouji! 'Sup with the kid?"  
  
Both males turned. Two more boys were ambling towards them, one short, but powerfully built, and the other being of a more average build.  
  
"This here is one of the Sohma brats," Kouji told them. "I was just saying how nice it was that he showed up, because now I can show that Hattie Haru--"  
  
"HATSUHARU," Momiji chided him. How many times did he have to correct this guy?  
  
"WHATEVER. I can show him what happens when he messes with the likes of Arashi Kouji!"  
  
Poor Momiji was even more puzzled now. "But Haru's not here!"  
  
Kouji turned on the little blonde, leering. The other two, who seemed to be his friends, smirked. They knew what was imminent.  
  
"He'll learn when he sees your bloody body."  
  
---_**Three Minutes Later…**_---  
  
"Oh, you poor thing!" The guidance counselor launched herself at Saurai, who stood frozen like a stricken animal trapped in the headlights.  
  
_Run_, every nerve in her body screamed at her. _If you value life, God damn it, run for it!_  
  
Too late. The counselor already had her in a tight grip, causing the brunette to let out a choked wheeze as her lungs cringed from the suffocating force of the hug.  
  
"Ohhhh, I should have known it would still be too hard for you to discuss! But for you to have drawn a bunny…my dear, you must be strong!"  
  
"A bunny has nothing to do with my family," Sasurai said impatiently, trying to free herself.  
  
The counselor begged to differ. "You must have had a little rabbit for a pet, and then the fire destroyed it, burning its fur to blackened, scorched flesh, searing its eyes, making it die a horrible death, twitching and convulsing inside its cage until blood spewed forth from its mouth like a crimson fountain!"  
  
Sasurai was glad she had never owned a bunny…otherwise, she'd be feeling pretty ill right about now. "Umm…I have to go…I need to get home and…help make dinner."  
  
"But dear, you've only been here for five minutes!"  
  
The girl grabbed her schoolbag and fled. "That's more than enough!" She tossed over her shoulder as she escaped.  
  
Was anyone else done? No…the others had said they'd probably stay an hour or so after school…but maybe she could catch up with Momiji and walk home with him!  
  
With a relieved smile, Sasurai broke into a run, hoping to find the little half-German Sohma.  
  
Unfortunately, she'd hoped to find him under more desirable circumstances. Having seen a flash of blond hair just up ahead, she'd quickened her pace--and happened onto a very unwelcome scene.  
  
Momiji was getting soundly pummeled by three of her classmates. Two were holding him down and preventing him from escaping, while one was kicking and punching at the downed little boy. Every so often, they'd rotate. Through it all, the bunny's large brown eyes were dazed and teary, and he kept crying out in pain, trying to curl into a ball to protect himself.  
  
Sasurai knew that members of the Chinese Zodiac would transform when hugged by the opposite sex or weakened. If this kept up, Momiji might change into his rabbit form. She also thought about that horrible graphic image her counselor had produced when she had talked of that burned bunny that she had never owned. But there was only one main reason why she was spurred into action-- **NOBODY** hurt one of her friends and got away with it.  
  
"GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU BASTARDS!"  
  
Through the muddled fog of Momiji's mind, that voice and those words registered. _Sasurai…?_ And she'd used that word too. However, though it had a ring to it when Kouji had said it, the word used in Sasurai's tone of voice sounded just plain BAD.  
  
Kouji must have thought so too, for his eyes widened at the sight of the livid girl racing towards them, her schoolbag swinging like a crazed pendulum. He had time to yell briefly before Sasurai was upon him, smacking him over the head with a bag full of two dictionaries and a math book. The minute he fell to his knees, she turned her baleful attentions on his two lackeys.  
  
For the nonce, Momiji couldn't move, even though the other two boys had released him in order to defend themselves from the shrieking fury that had descended upon them. But slowly, he pushed himself up, balancing uncertainly on his feet.  
  
Sasurai was starting to have problems. Sure, she'd had the advantage of surprise and anger-fueled adrenaline, but there were three of them and one of her. Kouji ripped the schoolbag from her hand and sent it flying, grabbing her arm in a rigid vice-grip. Realizing that both she and Momiji were going to be in big trouble, the girl raised her voice.  
  
"Run, Momiji! Get out of here!"  
  
"But--"  
  
"**_GO_**!!"  
  
Hearing the desperateness in her voice, the petite Sohma took off. Behind him, he could hear a sharp cry from two people--Sasurai, who had been elbowed in the stomach, and Kouji, who had been punched in the nose.  
  
Momiji quickly put on speed and ran. But he didn't run to Shigure's house. He ran to the one person who could help most.  
  
---**_Chalalalala…_**---  
  
Sasurai fought like a woman possessed, but she had finally been overpowered. The brief fight had escalated into a full-blown melee, with all of them suffering. Kouji had a bloody nose, most likely broken. Of his two companions, one had his eye swelled shut, and the other was suffering an indignity to his…manhood, so to speak. As for Sasurai, she was now being held up by the arms by the two boys. She'd had two ribs fractured from a well-placed kick by Kouji and she was having trouble breathing.  
  
"You could've stayed out of it," Kouji said thickly, trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose with his sleeve. "I don't like fighting girls."  
  
The brunette glared at him with fiercely-bright hazel eyes, with the green dominating most of the warm brown color. "You should've known better than to pick on someone smaller than you, you pompous jackass."  
  
"That's it, you bit--"  
  
A hand seized his collar from behind, and the next thing Kouji knew, he was flying. And then he knew no more, having performed a less-than-elegant dive onto the pavement.  
  
Sasurai blinked and looked into the cold gray eyes of Black Haru. Momiji hovered anxiously behind him as the taller boy moved menacingly toward her captors.  
  
"Let her go. Let her go RIGHT NOW."  
  
They hesitated. Haru charged. They fled. For a moment, he considered going after them, just to pound some fear into their big heads, but then he heard a thud and Momiji's worried voice.  
  
"Sasurai!! Sasurai, get up!"  
  
Hatsuharu approached the girl lying on the ground, kneeling beside her. "How badly are you hurt?"  
  
She slowly lifted her head, wiping some blood off a cut on her left cheek. "I'm fine."  
  
"Which means you're too stubborn to admit you hurt like hell." He sat back on his heels, thinking. "I'd carry you, but then I'd transform…but that only happens if you hug me, so…"  
  
He was silent for so long that Sasurai began to grow wary. "What are you…?"  
  
Without warning, Hatsuharu grabbed her arms, causing her to yelp in pain. "Momiji, get her legs. We'll carry her this way."  
  
"Hai!" The smaller boy hurried to do as he was bid and soon Sasurai was lifted off the ground quite awkwardly.  
  
"PUT ME DOWN!"  
  
"If I did that," Hatsuharu said logically, "you'd crash to the ground and then you'd get hurt again."  
  
She had no reply to that, so settled for glaring at him.  
  
---**_A little While Later…_**---  
  
"Sasurai-san!" Tohru ran to where her friend was sitting unhappily, wincing as Hatori lightly ran his fingers over her ribs.  
  
"You've got two fractured ribs," the doctor said gravely, checking her bandages and making sure all of her minor cuts and scrapes had been tended to. "Momiji told me what happened, so…thank you."  
  
Sasurai blinked. She'd been expecting a lecture, not gratitude! "Huh?"  
  
"Momiji cannot defend himself. If you hadn't stepped in, he'd be in much worse shape than he is now. As it were, he only has a few bruises. However…" And the look he shot her made her shrink down, intimidated. "Do not get into any more fights. I can't keep fixing you."  
  
"Yes, sir," she squeaked, staring at the ground.  
  
"Akito's waiting for us at the Main House, so Shigure, take care of her, understand?"  
  
"Hai, Ha'-san! Don't worry, I'll be the best nurse Sasu-chan has ever had!"  
  
Sasurai grabbed Tohru's hands in hers, looking up at the girl with urgency in her eyes. "NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE WITH HIM."  
  
"H-hai…"  
  
"Sasu-chan, you don't have to be so mean!"  
  
"You are a _pervert_. I'm not letting you touch me!"  
  
"She's right, you know."  
  
"I agree with the baka neko, for once."  
  
"STOP ACTING SO STUCK-UP, you damned nezumi!"  
  
"Tohru-kun, they're all being mean to meeeeeeee…"  
  
"DON'T GO TO HER FOR HELP, IDIOT!" **THWACK.**  
  
"Itaiiiiiii…"  
  
---**_The Main House_**---  
  
"Ah, so there was a fight…" The voice was low and silky, but there was a tinge of ice in the tone, making stoic Hatori suppress a shudder.  
  
"Hai. Momiji and Asamoya-san have several injuries, but nothing too serious. Hatsuharu is completely unharmed."  
  
"Hmm. I see…I think the time grows close to when I must meet this girl for myself…I must see if this Asamoya Sasurai-san is worthy of knowing our secret…"  
  
---**OOC**---  
  
Yay! I'm done! -dances around- It's fun to write when you don't have distractions! Anyway…please review and Mai-chan is evil for making her fans turn on me, because she's not updating her fic 'til I post another one of mine. O.o Eviiiiiil. NEXT chapter!  
  
- It's a trip to the onsen! Can Sasurai handle meeting the extremely apologetic hostess?  
  
- Kisa shows up! Yay for tigers!  
  
- Behold the ping-pong tournament that turns into a brawl…especially when Yuki and Kyou are involved! 


	7. Trip to the Onsen

It's a miracle. Kia has finally returned to the world of fanfiction. I'm sorry, minna-san…AKA anyone who still reads my stuff. I was working on a month-long novel project thingy, but I missed this a lot and so I'm back. Actually…expect a lot of updates (new fics, new chapters, hooray!) and…let me get into this! Also, I'm still not sure if I WANT to pair Sasu up with anyone. I'll keep the Romance genre for the Kagura/Kyou moments and Yuki/Tohru, but we shall see. Anyway… 

Last chapter, Sasurai and Momiji got tangled up in a fight with some punks, Black Haru came to the bloody, violent rescue, and now that they've all had time to recover, let's see what they're up to now!

…Geez, I sound like Steve from Blue's Clues. O.o

Shigure: I love that dog!

Kia: …You would.

Shigure: By the way, what took you so long? I've been so bored waiting for you to write about me, Kia-chan!

Kia: -sighs- I'm writing now, aren't I? Let's get this started!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Huh?" Sasurai handed the wet plate to Tohru as she dunked her hands back into the sudsy water and looked over at Shigure. "An onsen?"

"Hai! Aya and I have noticed that everyone has been working very hard so come this Sunday, we're all going on to the onsen for some well-deserved relaxation!" The dog of the Zodiac was looking so enthused about this that it was making the girl just a little bit wary, but Tohru didn't seem to be bothered at all, smiling back genially at Shigure as she wiped the dripping plate with a cloth and set it on the counter.

"Shigure-san, by any chance, is this the same onsen that Momiji-kun took me for White Day?"

The novelist winked at her. "That's absolutely right, Tohru-kun! If you remember correctly, I was unable to accompany you, although I wished I could have…won't you let me treat you both this time?"

Sasurai risked a glance at her friend and immediately regretted it. Tohru's blue eyes were sparkling like an iridescent blue sky, her soapy hands clutched to her chest and she knew she was doomed. Unless…

"Do Yuki and Kyou know about this?" She blurted out. Going to a hot spring with a pervert was not in her Top Ten List of Things to Do for Fun. If Kyou and Yuki both objected, she still had a chance!

Shigure gave her a knowing smile, having anticipated any and all of Sasurai's protests. "Once I told them that if they didn't come, it would be just you, me, Tohru-kun, and Ayame, they agreed to come without any arguments at all! Isn't that wonderful?"

Tohru nodded enthusiastically and Sasurai stifled a groan. "Look, Shigure, I appreciate it and all, but I'm not going with just you and Ayame-san as chaperones."

"Oh, didn't I tell you that Ha'-san is coming too? And Ha'-kun, and Momitchi, and Kagura and Saa-chan and Hiro! 'Rai-chan refuses to come, sadly…"

"Saa-chan and Hiro?" The brunette echoed dubiously. "Who are they?"

Tohru opened her mouth to answer this, but Shigure cut in smoothly before she could get a single word out. "You'll find out, Sasu-chan! So, will you join us on our grand adventure?"

Sasurai hesitated. Her friend fixed her with a pleading look, and just when it couldn't possibly get any worse, Shigure threw his arms around her.

**POOF!!**

"My puppy-dog eyes work better in this form," the black canine explained, demonstrating as he gazed up at the sweatdropping girl with large, dark liquid eyes of melting sweetness. Now, there was something to be noted about Asamoya Sasurai. She was tough, with a stubborn personality that could rival a mule on a bad day, but she was completely helpless in the face of pleading and cute looks. _Dammit…_

"All right, all right, FINE!" She exploded, throwing her hands in the air and spraying poor Tohru with warm water. "I'll go, just STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!"

"I'm so happy, Sasurai-chan!" With a squeal, Tohru enfolded her friend in a hug, knocking them both off-balance and sending them crashing onto the floor with Shigure to break their fall.

_Please, please, PLEASE let nothing bad happen!_ Sasurai prayed desperately as Shigure grumbled about how heavy they were. _If there's a God up there who loves me, please let this go without Ayame-san or Shigure doing something stupid!_

_The Fateful Sunday Arrived…_

Sasurai took one look at Ayame running towards her, Tohru, Yuki, Kyou, and Shigure, wearing a wedding gown and lugging a little boy with light brown hair and narrowed brown eyes with him, and decided that God either hated her or just enjoyed watching her suffer. "'Gure-san, you've arriiiiiived!" Yuki's older brother screeched to a halt, beaming jovially as his surly prisoner scowled. "And Yuki and his friends too!"

"I'm NOT his friend, dammit!" Kyou snarled, while Tohru smiled and waved, Yuki merely stood like a stone statue, and Sasurai mumbled a greeting, wondering if she still had time to catch a bus and head back before it was too late.

Shigure, however, seemed to be a capable mind-reader and placed a heavy hand on the brunette's shoulders. She slumped, unhappily accepting her defeat as the Hebi and the Inu of the Zodiac began exchanging their usual perverted remarks while the unfortunate boy in Ayame's hold rolled his eyes, but was powerless to escape.

"Is everyone here already, Aya?" Shigure inquired, sobering after awhile.

"And what are you doing wearing a wedding dress?" Yuki demanded sharply, as Sasurai and Kyou both remained at a loss for words. "Let Hiro go."

"Hahahaha! Yuki!" His older brother gestured grandly, releasing the boy who immediately locked Sasurai into a staring contest. "Is this dress not beautiful? My customer wanted to know how durable his dress will be and so I decided to try it out by wearing it for a week! And so, this is the last day and it is indeed holding up well, no?"

Before Yuki could reply, Ayame turned back to Shigure. "Everyone has arrived! Kisa-chan and Hiro-chan and everyone! Come, let us go greet them!" The boy known as "Hiro" continued to stare at Sasurai, who was beginning to feel a little unnerved under such piercing scrutiny.

"Why are you staring?" She finally asked exasperatedly.

Hiro smirked. "Does it matter? Why are you upset by me looking at you? Is it a crime to be curious about strangers? Should I not stare if someone is robbing a bank? Is your self-esteem that low to be daunted by a kid?"

"I'll show you 'daunted', you little--" Unfortunately, she was prevented from smashing the brat's face in by Yuki, who shook his head warningly.

"Hiro always acts like this with everyone, except for Kisa. It's nothing personal. Come on, Asamoya-san, let's go inside…" With his hands placed on her shoulders, the nezumi firmly steered her into the building--where she came face-to-face with a woman who could have been one of those zombies in any particular horror movie.

"Welcome…" She gasped out, her gray eyes drilling into Sasurai's own startled hazel ones. "To…my…ONSEEEEEN…will it be the same room?"

"Eh…uh…u-um…are you…?"

The woman's eyes widened. "You are new! I do not recognize you! And I was being presumptuous!" To the girl's horror, she grabbed her by the arms and began shaking her, while howling out apologies at the top of her lungs.

**"GOMEN NASAI, GOMEN NASAI, I SHOULD NOT HAVE ASSUMED THAT YOU HAD BEEN HERE BEFORE AND NOW I MUST SPILL OUT MY INNARDS TO ATONE FOR MY HORRIBLE SIN GOMEN NASAIIIIIIIIIIII!"**

Throughout her monologue and constant shaking, Sasurai had been turning paler by the second. "T-there's no need to apologiiiize," she managed to get out.

**"GOMEN NASAAAAAAAAAIIIIIII, I AM SO SORRY, I WILL APOLOGIZE TO THE WOOOOOOORRRRRLD!"**

"Sasurai!"

"Sass-chan! Yun-chan!"

Help arrived from two unlikely sources: a boar and a bunny. Kagura came racing up to throw her arms around Sasurai, who was thankfully freed from the zombie woman's grasp, and hugged the older girl out of sheer gratefulness while Momiji bounced around them, then hopped outside, squealing Tohru's name.

"Hiro-chan bet Shii-chan that you wouldn't come and you did!" The gray-eyed girl paused, looking over at Sasurai's shoulder and acting rather bashful. "By the way…d-did Kyou-kun come as well?"

_Well, that explains why he was glaring at me like that…wonder how much money he lost._ "Actually, Kyou _is_ here. He's waiting for you outside."

Yuki smiled at this, as Kagura let out a cry similar to Momiji's and tore outside. There came several screams of horror coming from a certain orange-haired neko and loud shouts of "KYOU-KUUUUUUUUUUUUN!", as well as Tohru's smaller voice, trying to keep the overenthusiastic boar from tearing Kyou to pieces in her joy. From Kyou's screeches, however, Tohru's endeavors weren't being too successful.

"I thought I heard a commotion out here…" Sasurai and the zombie woman turned at the same time to see Hatori approaching them, wearing a…bathrobe?!

"You," Sasurai stated calmly, pointing a quivering finger at him. "YOU."

The stoic doctor raised an eyebrow. "Me," he replied calmly. "Is something wrong?"

The girl suddenly burst out laughing, almost doubled over. "You…you're wearing a BATHROBE!!" She wheezed, giggling so hard that Tohru (who had entered and greeted the Okami) looked at her concernedly.

"Is she feeling all right?" Hatsuharu had now joined the growing group and was peering at Sasurai with an air of bemusement. "Maybe she should go into the water before she hurts herself…"

"Hahahaha…oh…a BATHROBE!!!"

"I-I think Hatsuharu-san is right," Tohru said quickly. "Come on, Sasurai-chan, let's go in! It's very nice at night!"

Kagura dropped a bloodied Kyou to the ground and bounded over. "I'll go in with you! Kisa-chan is waiting for you, Tohru-kun. She's very excited about this."

"I'll go in with you, too!" Momiji piped up gleefully.

"NO," Kyou and Yuki both said at once, the former struggling to sit up and staunch the flow of blood from his nose. Poor guy. Love hurt.

"You'll stay on the men's side," Hatori informed the usagi sternly, earning a petulant stare and a "But HA'RI…" He was (strangely enough) blushing slightly, for Sasurai couldn't seem to control her hysterics at seeing such a serious man in a bathrobe, of all clothing. A white, fluffy bathrobe.

Maybe she was just losing her remaining sanity while staying with this family.

_--In the Hot Springs--_

"Eh? Tohru-kun…" Sasurai, who had finally managed to calm down, pointed at the picture that her friend held as they basked in the hot water, hair pinned atop their heads. "Who is that?"

"Oh!" The brunette smiled cheerfully. "This is my Okaasan. She died in a car accident about two years ago…she enjoyed our last trip to the onsen, so I brought her along this time, too!"

Kagura's gray eyes began to sparkle. "Tohru-kun, that's so thoughtful!"

Kisa, the youngest female, nodded in agreement. Upon meeting her, Sasurai had instantly pulled a Tohru and fallen in love with the tiger of the Chinese Zodiac. She looked to be around twelve or thirteen years of age, with golden-brown hair, and soulful brown eyes. She didn't talk much, but she seemed to like the newcomer to the family and clung to her almost as much as she still did to Tohru.

"That IS a nice gesture," Sasurai remarked, sinking into the water with a sigh of sheer bliss. "Ahh, this feels so good…"

Little did the girls know that they were being watched. As the conversation switched to romance, two certain Zodiac members fought over the peephole in the wooden fence that separated the two hot springs.

"'Gure-san, it's my turn!" Ayame whined, trying to press himself against the hole. "After all, Sasu-chan IS my employee and it's only fitting that I should get to see her!"

"But she and Tohru-kun both live in MY house," the inu retorted, and the two began to squabble.

Kyou rolled his eyes, as did Yuki. "Honestly," the latter stated. "You two are so vulgar!"

Ayame turned to regard his brother. "Ah, but Yuki, your princess is so lovely! You should come have a look! And Hiro-chan can look too, and so can Kyonkichi-kun! After all, Kagura and Kisa-chan are over there as well."

Hiro turned an incredibly shade of pink and Kyou covered his own embarrassment by yelling loudly, "DON'T CALL ME THAT, YOU BASTARD!!"

"Ha'-kun, what about you?" Knowing well enough to leave Hatori alone, Shigure looked at Hatsuharu, who seemed to be dozing off in the water.

The ox shook his head. "It's rude to peek at naked girls."

"Right, right!" Momiji agreed. "But I know what's fun!" Before Yuki or Kyou could stop him, the little blonde boy was yelling to the other side.

"Ne, ne, Tohru, Sasurai, minna! Let's all sing my song together, ne? Yuuhi no yamani…teru, teru, Momiji…"

Tohru willingly joined in, if a bit shyly, and once Kisa, Kagura, and Sasurai had gotten the words memorized, they all sang along. Hatsuharu even hummed under his breath and Ayame bellowed out the words in such a tone that poor Hatori had to leave the springs before he went deaf.

And then Kagura spotted Shigure's eye watching them.

"EEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH, SHII-CHAN NO HENTAI!!!!!!!" Eyes blazing, the girl slammed her fists into the water, generating a wave of water that rose over the wall and swept the unfortunate males out of the onsen. ((A/N: Hey, it's anime. Things do this.))

A shadow in the foliage nearby watched, and two dark eyes glinted…

_---Later…---_

Finally, everyone had toweled off and were now dressed in blue kimonos (minus Ayame and his wedding dress)--including Hatori, which almost made Sasurai lapse into a laughing fit again. Now, most of the group had gathered in one of the rec rooms, watching Tohru attempt to hit the ping-pong ball that Kyou was gently pitching her way. And still, she failed miserably, but she kept smiling about it. Hatori had gone to bed early, due to a headache…mostly generated by the company he was keeping and the apologetic screams of the Okami.

Hiro was looking bored, but Kisa seemed enthralled by the game, and he didn't seem to want to insult it in her presence. Noticing the blush that appeared on the boy's face when Kisa smiled at him, Sasurai decided she had to give him SOME sort of opportunity.

"Ne, Hiro-san…"

"Yeah?" He gave her a surly glance and she stifled a sharp retort, reminding herself that it wasn't personal, as Yuki has assured her.

"Why don't you try playing with Kisa-chan? There's another table next door…"

Hiro hesitated, but the hesitant smile his companion gave him decided him, and he awkwardly took her hand and led her out of the room.

"Why, you devious little matchmaker!" Shigure muttered, as Sasurai grinned at him, flashing him a thumbs up.

"Yuki-kun, why don't you go against Kyou-kun?" Tohru suggested. "You're both so good."

"I'm not playing against him!" Kyou exploded.

Yuki shrugged. "I would, but as you can see, Honda-san, that baka neko is too afraid to challenge me…"

That struck a nerve and Kyou immediately countered with, "BRING IT ON, RAT-BOY!!! I'LL DESTROY YOU!"

Two minutes later, the rec room was a war zone, with out of control ping pong balls zigzagging everywhere. Hatsuharu, Momiji, and Sasurai had sought refuge under one of the folding tables, while Tohru looked on apprehensively, Shigure and Ayame deciding that now was the perfect time to go eat, and Kagura hugging Kyou around the waist and making his attempts to hit the ball even more difficult.

Suddenly, Sasurai froze, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. "…That's weird…"

"What's weird?" Hatsuharu looked at her quizzically.

"That Kyou and Yuki haven't killed each other yet?" Momiji chirped.

She smiled, shaking her head. "No…but it just felt…like I was being watched."

"Snort."

Normally, that sound wasn't one to usually strike fear into the hearts of men, but when delivered right by Sasurai's ear, it was effective enough.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" She jumped up, and (forgetting where she was) promptly whapped her head on the underside of the table and hit the ground, landing on top of Hatsuharu.

**POOF!**

"I'm sorry!" The girl cried frantically, moving away from the cow and glaring daggers at the object of her fear. "Pug, what are you doing here? Did you hitch hike or something?"

The little dog wheezed and trotted out--where the Okami promptly tripped over him, hit Ayame, who was checking to see if anyone had won the meaningless ping-pong battle yet…and, well, we all know that Sasurai is afraid of snakes.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH, SNAKE, GET IT AWAY FROM ME, GET IT AWAAAAAAAY!"

"Y'know, being a cow sometimes is very uncomfortable…"

"Sasu-chan, please! Must you scream so loudly? Am I not a beautiful specimen?"

"SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!!"

"Ayame, you're scaring Sasurai, change back!"

**POOF!**

"AHHHHHH, PUT ON SOME CLOTHES!!!!!!"

"STOP DUCKING, KUSO NEZUMI!!"

"Stop getting the ball out, baka neko."

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!"

"Isn't that what you just did? You should really follow your own advice…"

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"YAAAAAAAAAY, KYOU-KUN!"

"LET GO OF ME!!!!"

"A-a-ano, Kyou-kun, Yuki-kun…!"

**"GOMEN NASAIIIIIIIIIII! I AM SO SORRY FOR TRIPPING OVER YOU!!!! AND I AM SO SORRY THAT I TURNED YOU INTO A SNAKE, AYAME-BOCCHAN!!!! GOMEN NASAIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!"**

Kisa and Hiro had actually drifted off in the other room, propped against each other with the tora's head resting against Hiro's shoulder.

Inside his room, Hatori winced and decided to bring ear-plugs if he was ever brought along on this idiotic trip again.

---**OOC**---

Sorry that took me so long! -cough- GOMEN NASAIIIIIIIIII!

All right, please review! NEXT chapter!

- When Hatsuharu catches a cold and transforms, guess who's out rounding up cows at that very moment?

- It's a slaughter house rescue mission! Can Yuki, Sasurai, and Shigure save Haru on time?

- Sasurai feels bad for the cows…and Shigure's a dog…dogs round up cattle, right? Uh-oh.


	8. Slaughterhouse Rescue

Eh…I have discovered the folly of writing three fics at once. Yep. It makes it hard to update all of them without focusing on a single one. But I'm trying my best, really! Don't expect another update for this until two more fics are updated, but I haven't given this up, I promise! 

As for reviews…we all have our fears. And Sasu's just happens to be of snakes. It's like how I hate spiders. It's not Ayame personally…it's just…okay, maybe it is. O.o And in case the last chaotic part was confusing, here's who says what…

Sasurai screams about the snake, Haru gripes about being a cow, Ayame is insulted about Sasu's fright, Sasurai keeps screaming, Momiji tells Ayame to change back, he does, Sasurai freaks about his lack of clothing, Yuki and Kyou argue over ping-pong, Kagura cheers the neko on, Tohru tries to break it up, and the hostess screams apologies. The end.

Anyway, last time, the gang took a trip to the onsen and chaos ensued.

**IMPORTANT:** I like Rin. So Sasurai is NOT being paired up with Haru. Now let's go!

Shigure: Hooray!

* * *

Sohma Hatsuharu was not feeling well today. In fact, he felt downright miserable. His nose was clogged, his throat felt thick, his head pounded fiercely, and he couldn't complete a sentence without a cough interjected somewhere within it.

To put it simply, the ox of the Chinese Zodiac had a bad cold.

To make matters worse, he had overslept and Hatori (seeing the boy's exhaustion) simply drove Momiji to the high school without notifying Haru first. So naturally the ox was more than a little upset when he woke with a start, only to discover that everyone else had already left. He couldn't pass up a chance to see Yuki! With the best of intentions, Hatsuharu left the house on his bike and set off towards the general direction of school.

However, Haru was constantly getting lost, and this time was no different. Four hours later, he still couldn't see the building anywhere up ahead nor hear the lively chatter of the students who inhabited it. In fact, he seemed to be in the middle of a field…surrounded by grazing cows that he was quite sure DIDN'T attend high school. And he couldn't stop sneezing!

It was only when the boy let out an almighty sneeze that Haru realized, with an increasingly sinking feeling of trepidation, that something very bad was about to happen.

"ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! …Oh, damn."

**_POOF!_**

The cows looked up from their content munching of the grass to examine the newcomer in their midst before abruptly lowering their heads back to the ground again.

_This isn't so bad_, Haru tried to reassure himself. _I can just wait until I turn back, change, and find the school. No one's around to see me, anyway._

It was at that moment that Farmer Yamazaki appeared, gathering up the cows and herding them into the back of a large truck.

"Sorry, my friends," he grinned, swatting a heifer on her rump and earning himself an indignant bellow. "You're all due to be hamburgers for the hungry population! Come on, now!"

Haru formed a sweatdrop.

_…Uh-oh. This is bad._

**_-Elsewhere…-_**

****

"That…_stupid_ counselor!" Sasurai snarled vehemently, grabbing fistfuls of brown hair and tugging on them furiously, until Yuki laid a hand on hers and shook his head.

"Asamoya-san…I'm sure she doesn't mean any harm, and you'll tear your hair out if you keep doing that."

"She'll be thrilled," the brunette replied, hazel eyes closing in defeat as she released her suffering tresses. "She'll chalk up the sudden baldness to my stress over the 'horrible fire accident that destroyed everything I knew and cherished'." Her voice went high-pitched in imitation of her counselor, before she turned her gaze to the violet-eyed nezumi. "Gomen ne, Yuki. I'm just frustrated…"

"It happens to all of us at times," Yuki told her calmly. "Perhaps you should ask Honda-san for advice…she's better at it than I am or that baka neko."

Sasurai smiled. "Well, the baka neko's at the dojo and Tohru-kun is with Hanajima-san and Uotani-san and…hey." She suddenly raised an eyebrow, regarding him with suspicion. "Why do you keep calling her Honda-san? It's been at least a year that she's stayed with you, hasn't it? You should stop being so formal."

Yuki blinked, surprised by the rather sudden subject change. "A-ah…Honda-san is Honda-san. It would seem strange to call her by any other name."

"Hm." His companion tapped her chin, then sighed. "I don't believe that. I think you're afraid to call her Tohru."

The gray-haired boy bristled. "I am not!"

"Then start doing it!" Sasurai turned away, but not before he heard her mutter, "You two have been flirting with each other long enough…when are you actually going to DO something about it?"

Yuki opened his mouth to speak, but saw that Sasurai had stopped, looking oddly at a large group of cows being ushered onto a truck by an irritated-looking man.

"That's…a really weird place to play Cowboy," she remarked, raising both eyebrows. "What's going on?"

The boy shrugged. "It could be that they escaped and he's rounding them up again…or-"

He stopped, having caught sight of a very familiar bicycle lying abandoned on the grass…alongside a boy's school uniform and several necklaces.

Feeling suddenly foreboding, Yuki anxiously scanned the sea of black and white. "It couldn't be," he murmured. "Transforming among these…"

Beside him, Sasurai let out a shriek, pointing at the truck as it rumbled away-more specifically, at the cow with various hoops set in his ears, trapped amongst the other lowing animals at the back of the vehicle.

"H-Hatsuharu-san! COME BACK!" Before Yuki could stop her, the girl had taken off after the truck, waving her arms frantically. "Driver, that's my cow! Jump, you stupid cow, JUMP!"

"Actually," Yuki corrected her, easily keeping up with her hurried pace, "he's an Ox."

There was a long pause, then a disgruntled snort. "Jump, you stupid Ox, JUMP!"

Hearing her, Haru valiantly tried to do so-but he was too tightly penned in.

"Aaaargh!" Sasurai looked around desperately for something-ANYTHING- to aid her in reaching Hatsuharu. And her roving eyes fell upon the abandoned bike.

"Ne, Yuki…"

Yuki eyed her warily, not liking the gleam that had entered her hazel eyes without warning. "Hai…?"

Grinning now, the brunette approached him with widespread arms. "If you want to save your cousin, come give Sasu-chan a biiiiiig hug!"

_I knew it…_

**_-A good half hour later…-_**

****

"Are you sure the truck went this way?" Yuki, in rat form, clung desperately to Sasurai's shoulder as the girl pedaled furiously down the road, hands clutching the handlebars of the bike tightly.

"Of course I am!" She shouted back to him, the wind generated by their "leisurely" ride whipping her hair back and almost smacking poor Yuki in the whiskery face.

Yuki suddenly sweatdropped as they passed a car and had time to glimpse the driver's startled expression before they were ahead of it and streaking away. "Just how fast are we going…?"

"Well…" Sasurai had to pause and catch her breath before answering, although her legs never faltered in methodically pumping the pedals. "Pretty fast, but no worries! If we were going dangerously fast, we'd be on fire!"

The nezumi considered that unhappy thought and shuddered delicately. Then he patted her cheek with his paw to get her attention. "I think that's where the truck went…"

The brunette blinked, then turned her head, slowing down until they halted in front of a huge wire fence with a smiley face sign perched near the top. It was currently open and Sasurai hopped off the bike with Yuki perched neatly on her shoulder. There were several trucks inside the compound, similar to the one she had raced after and a large metal building just beyond that.

"What a weird place to bring cows," Sasurai muttered, tilting her head and looking around for any signs of Hatsuharu. Instead, her ears caught the pitiful lowing and bellows of frightened cattle and so she headed in that direction.

With no warning whatsoever, a hideous stench struck her square in the face and she reeled back, almost dislodging Yuki, who had covered his nose with his paws. It smelled like…death, pure and simple. Dead flesh.

Now getting a very bad case of trepidation, Sasurai quickly discovered the source of the mooing and found a very large pen with a chute and a steel door near the front. Inside, no less than fifty cows milled about, each one uttering panicked moos and thrashing their heads about in terror. As the girl stepped closer to the pen, one of the cows was panting heavily, her nose running like a nonstop faucet and her large frame shuddering with the efforts of breathing.

Yuki stared, completely appalled at the sight. If this was what he thought it was…

He didn't have time to complete this thought, for the girl suddenly ducked down out of sight, murmuring for her small companion to be quiet. The driver of the truck had emerged from the door and opened the shoot from the side, holding some sort of stick that was…CRACKLING?

Seeing this, every single one of the cows began a mad rush to get to the back of the pen and as far away from the stick as possible. Sasurai recognized the stick as a cattle prod, but…she watched in horror as the man selected a bovine and began herding it toward the chute by touching the prod to its flesh and making the poor animal shriek and run into the chute, if just to avoid the agony of being shocked by the voltage the prod wielded. Working effectively, the man soon had a line of cows and herded one through the door. There, someone put an unusual-looking gun to its head and-

Sasurai stumbled backwards, one hand flying to her mouth to keep from screaming while her eyes squeezed desperately shut as if trying to deny what had just happened.

"I-It's a slaughterhouse…" She whispered brokenly, trembling hard. "B-b-but that means…"

She and Yuki grasped the concept at the same time. Haru was in cow form at the moment and most likely in the pen. Unless he had already…no. They couldn't think about that.

"Yuki? Sasurai?"

At the hopeful voice, both teens looked up and found themselves staring at a gray-eyed bovine with several piercings in his ears. His head was hanging over the fence and he seemed to be the only one out of the cows that wasn't panicking or almost trampling each other in their rush to escape impending doom.

"Hatsuharu-san!" Careful not to attract the man's attention, Sasurai rose and threw her arms around his neck. "We've got to get you out of here…"

"How?" He asked dolefully, although he was very glad to see them. He didn't want to end up on a fast food menu.

Yuki came to the rescue with a plan. "If Sasurai doesn't touch you, you should change back soon. We've got your clothes with us and you can climb over the fence. They won't stop us if you're not in Ox form."

Sasurai immediately (and somewhat guiltily) withdrew from Hatsuharu, who nodded his head and disappeared amongst his fellow cows. Sure enough, two minutes later, a puff of silvery smoke signified that he had changed back. Using a helpful heifer to cover his modesty, the Sohma boy caught the clothes that Sasurai lobbed to him and soon joined them, suitably clothed once again.

The door had closed and the line of waiting cattle had dwindled significantly. As they headed for the exit, Sasurai suddenly paused and glanced back over her shoulder. Hatsuharu, correctly interpreting her feelings, laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Sasurai, I know…but we can't free them all."

"Oh, can't we?"

This was beginning to get strange, Yuki thought wearily as they all turned and saw a beaming Shigure standing in front of them.

There was a very long pause, in which the three teens stared at the Inu, and the novelist stared back with an affable grin still planted on his face.

"Shigure…what are YOU doing here?" Sasurai finally broke the silence to ask.

He chuckled. "Simple, simple, my dear girl! I got a very interesting call from Ha'-san, who said that Ha'-kun hadn't gone to school and he had been passed in his car by a very determined-looking young woman on a bicycle. Naturally, I figured out what was happening at once and came in all haste to assist you in the rescue of our esteemed Ox!"

"Orrr…Hatori-san had a guess where we were going and told you and is currently waiting outside and grumbling about how stupid you are," Sasurai said wryly.

Shigure coughed into his hand. "Anyway, I feel your pain for these poor, majestic creatures…" He trailed off as a cow drooled on the fence post, then resumed with considerable composure. "And I have decided to help you!"

Yuki was feeling rather sarcastic at the moment (Imagine that). "And HOW do you propose to do that?" He snapped. "Write them a romance novel to make dying much easier?"

"Such cynicism in one so young is not to be admired." Shigure smirked. "Think, my young ones. What does one usually use to herd cattle?"

Another long silence ensued, before it clicked. Sasurai's head shot up and she looked at Shigure with a sort of amused resignation. "You DO know that this is very ridiculous and we'll probably never get away with it and it's probably breaking the rules."

In response, the man held out his arms to her. "The Juunishi rarely ever follow the rules. It makes life quite exciting."

**_POOF!_**

If Hatori had any regrets about chauffeuring Shigure to the slaughterhouse and seeing him emerge as a large black dog with two teens, a rat, and about forty cows with several men chasing after them and yelling obscenities, he held them back admirably.

Hatsuharu stayed home from school for the next two days to nurse his cold. Hatori had mysteriously gotten a headache and retreated into his office during that time. And Sasurai had called around and found a vegetarian society whose members were only too happy to take forty cows under their care.

As the girl massaged her sore legs the next day, Yuki decided that if they ever went on another rescue mission-HE would be the one pedaling and not the one clinging onto a maniac's shoulder.

But then again, it HAD been sort of fun.

Sort of.

**-OOC-**

Hoo, that was fun. Yeah, I know a slaughterhouse rescue is highly strange, but then again, so is this whole story. Thanks, everyone, for being so patient. It's good to write again and now that this chapter is done…I can…write more. -cackle- Anyway, please review and…hm. Yes. NEXT chapter!

- Sasurai's out Christmas shopping when she runs into a young woman named…Kana!

- Something happens to our heroine and in an attempt to get help, Hatori must face Kana. Can the doctor overcome his pain? What's wrong with Sasurai? And what's up with Momiji running around in a towel?


End file.
